


Adhesion

by Damascus_ari



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-07-02 01:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 41
Words: 30,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damascus_ari/pseuds/Damascus_ari
Summary: Cadet Cloud Strife gets reassigned.AU. Includes OCs.





	1. 09:44, Saturday

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Greetings from the chair, this is your writer speaking. I've started this as a fresh AO3 invite graduate, and now I guess I'm not fresh anymore. Sniffle.
> 
> Anyways, here are my ramblings- I mean a polished, genius masterpiece- cough. Cough. Definitely not napkin scribbles.
> 
> Enjoy!

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but there's been some mistake on my schedule. It says here that next week I'm supposed to go to Military Strategy 301 and Materia Use R01? They just appeared there, they're not on the cadet course list."

The lady smacks her lips and half grunts. "Did you file to support?"

"Yes ma'am. They sent me to you, ma'am. Here are the copies-"

"Don't bother. Your name?"

"Cadet Cloud Strife, ma'am."

She taps on the keyboard, then lazily shifts her hand to the mouse. She slowly clicks a few times. "It says here you've been reassigned on demand. Did you click something on your course list by mistake?"

"Ma'am, they're not on the course list at all. I couldn't have clicked on it, ma'am."

 _"Hmm_. If technical didn't cancel it, that means it's been properly authorized."

"But I didn't click on it-"

"Not my problem." She raises a hand as if to dismiss him, before pausing. She reaches for something under the desk. "Well, I need to give you this." She sighs deeply and reaches across from the desk to the printer. A few keystrokes later, she retrieves something from it.

"Ma'am?"

She jerkly shoves it in his direction. He takes the object. It a familliar thin white rectangle with his picture on it. "Your new keycard. You'll need it to get to your classes. If you lose it, report to support. You can throw the old one out."

"But I didn't-"

"I. Don't. Care."

Cloud opens his mouth, then closes it. He salutes. "Thank you for the assistance, ma'am."

She smacks her lips.

Cloud flees.


	2. 10:21, Saturday

"Military Strategy 301, Military Strategy- aargh!" Cloud resists the urge to punch the loaned laptop, instead setting it aside to rage at the air. The course description stares at him mockingly:

_A continuation and expansion of core strategies discussed in the MSt101, MSt102, MSt201 and MSt202 classes, with an emphasis on non-standard engagement tactics and cross collaboration._

"I can't even access the other Military Strategy course pages!" _Prerequisites: MSt202 completed._

"What the hell is wrong with this system!?" _You do not meet the course criteria. You have been accepted for this course._

"I don't even-" Cloud sighs. "Eh. I'll just go, explain it, they'll kick me out, and it'll be fine." He grabs the laptop, and clicks on the highlighted _MSt202_.

_You do not have permission to view this page._

He refreshes it, then presses back. MSt101.

_You do not have pemission to view this page._

MSt102.

_You do not have permission to view this page._

MSt201.

_You do not have permission to view this page._

Cloud sighs, closes the browser, turns off the laptop and heads to the library. It's predictably empty, aside from one smiling lady.

"Um, ma'am? Are there any books on Military Strategy 101?"

"Do you mean Military Strategy Basics 101, dear? They're right on aisle 5."

"Uh, Military Strategy. Without the Basics."

"Oh. Can I have your keycard, please?" He hands it over. "It says here you don't have permission. I'm sorry, hun, I can't help you with that."

Cloud mentally sighs. "What about Military Strategy 301?"

"But-"

"Please."

"Alright, dear. Oh, you _do_  have permission. Those system errors, eh? You can take them all out as 301, if you want to. Technical doesn't get anything done, I know. Hmm. They have ebooks. Do you want it on your account?"

"Yea-yes, ma'am."

"Hmm. There. It's all on your account. I unlocked your account for you. You'll have access to all the course materials, ok, hun? Come back if there's any problem."

"Um. Thank you, ma'am. Have a great day."

"Have a good one."


	3. 07:00, Monday

Three days. Three days before MSt301. Four days before MUR01. He ignores the jibes from his fellow cadets as he faceplants yet another time on their morning run, briefly glances at his notes before the Contemporary History exam, and almost slices his hand off with a dull practice blade in the afternoon exercises.

All Cloud can think of is MSt301.

He wrote to technical five times, until he finally got another response telling him to "suck it up, it's the military, you've been assigned to this, it's legit, stop bothering us."

Cloud tries to focus on the instructor explaining the movement again. They stand around and everyone's doing the things, and the drill Sergeant is going around correcting everyone's mistakes. Cloud jerkily tries to copy someone's half assed attempt.

"Are you even trying, Strife!?" Cloud feels the shove, stumbles, and bites the ground for the fifth time that day. "Get up! Up! Keep your stance wide! Knees bent! Outwards, not like an old geezer! Too wide! Better!" Another shove, and this time he stays on his feet, just barely. "Practice that! Knees!"

Cloud survives.

After a short, not quite hot shower, he stumbles to his favorite empty corridor and plugs in the laptop charger. He turns the laptop on, wiggles the power cord, and opens up the ebook.

Page 73.

_Situation: You're stuck in a 3 floor abandoned building (Map 56B) with 3 other SOLDIERs, one not critically injured but immobile, and no medical supplies or radio equipment. Insurgents have surrounded the building and are presumed to have-_

It's a long night.


	4. 10:13, Thursday

Cloud stares at the door. It's a rather unremarkable, standard issue base affair with a keycard reader. There's no one around, and his PHS is loudly insisting that's the one door to his fate.

He breathes in deeply. He steps forward. One step, other step.

Someone darts out, barely passing him a glance before barreling down the corridor Cloud just came from.

He breathes in again, and moves closer to the door.

He takes his keycard, reaches out to the scanner, and waits for the green light and click of an opening lock. The light turns green, and the lock disengages. He's in.

He's in.

He's walking forward, following the minimap on his PHS, trying not to look at all the new faces of the busy people around him. He tries to keep a blank face, striding determinately forward. He stops, narrowly missing a tray of paperwork and a disgrunted office worker.

A few turns, and a new kind of uniform starts appearing: light blue. SOLDIER, 3rd class. A few purple blots: 2nd class. Cloud swallows a lump in his throat, but moves forward with purpose. Some of them are staring, he can feel it, and he suddenly wishes he brough his helmet.

Almost there.

He turns a corner, swipes his keycard again, and enters another corridor, just as his PHS happily announces his arrival.

There's a crowd of 3rds and 2nds gathered before the classroom, and they're all staring at him. He just moves closer to the wall, leans on it, and pretends none of this is happening, because obviously Cloud hit his head one too many times and he'll wake up to discharge paperwork in the infirmary.

Some of them turn away, resuming whatever converstations he interrupted. A few more stragglers arrive, and the door, another door to his doom, opens. They shuffle in. Cloud ackwardly stands next to the instructor, ramrod straight and with a pleading expression on his face.

"So you're the runt?" Cloud opens his mouth to explain- "I don't care. Whatever asslicking you did to get here, I don't want to hear it."

"But I want to leave, sir. I didn't-"

"You didn't what? Didn't think this through? No, you're sticking it through the  _entire_ course and by the time I'm through with you, you'll be begging for your mama."

"I didn't sign up at all, sir-"

"Look. You either own your balls, or you don't. You need to be a man. Take a seat."

Cloud feels sweat rolling down to his toes, feels the squish squash of wet socks in standard issue boots as he turns towards the rest of the classroom.

"Oh, and Strife?"

He pivots around in a blink.

"I getting you an order for a new uniform. You can't do exercises in that thing."

"Yessir."

Cloud desperately tries not to faint as he walks down the row of seats and dejectetly plops down.

"Alright midgets, welcome to Military Strategy 301. If you don't yet know me, I'm Sergeant Rick Otter. Rick. Not Ricky or Otty or whatever. Congratulations for making it here. Half of you will fail before the second term. Now- this course is  _not_ like Military Strategy 1 or 2. We'll use a holo deck, yes, but there won't be any fighting this semester."

One person raises a hand.

"Yes, Pearson?"

"But we can use weapons in an emergency, yes? Minimizing casualties?"

"No. In fact, you won't be using any weapons at all. This will be about stealth, espionage, hostage negotiations, the like."

Someone else groans. "But isn't that a Turk's job?"

"There isn't always a Turk around. Besides, if you want to be a squad leader, you'll have to deal with unexpected shit. That answers your question?"

"Yeah."

"Is it too late to opt out?"

"No. If you want to leave, leave." Cloud starts getting up. "Except you, runt." He slumps back down.

A few people squirm in their seats, but no one leaves.

"Now, who read the first chapter of the assigned ebook? Anyone?"

Cloud raises his hand tentatively. He glances around. No one else has theirs up.

"Well, what do you know. Alright, runt, assuming you remember anything, can you briefly summarize it for us?"


	5. 12:01, Thursday

Cloud stumbles out. He leans on the wall, then falls down again because someone  **slams** him on the back.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you're fragile. Anyways, thanks for the save there, buddy. You ok?" Cloud sees purple as the person picks him up. "I'm Zack, Zack Fair, SOLDIER 2nd class. You?"

"Cloud Strife, cadet." He faces the stranger. "I'll manage."

"Good to hear. What's a cadet doing here?" They starts walking towards the corridor.

"I don't know. I just got a schedule change, technical said it's authorized, the keycard lady didn't believe me when I said I didn't do anything and now the instructor doesn't believe me."

"Ooh, a mystery! Maybe Kunsel would know something- that's another SOLDIER. My best bud. Whatch'ya doing now?"

"Uh, I though- I'd study, and then go to my next class."

"When's that?"

"Uhh, two hours and three minutes."

"Great! Let's go eat." Zach grabs Cloud's arm and drags him towards a yet unexplored part of the building.

"I'm not hungry! Besides, I only have access to the infantry cafeteria-"

"Bleh. You have a keycard that works here, right?"

"Well, yes, but-"

"Then it'll work for the food too."

"But-"

"Trust me. Except for that stupid course system, and the exec floors, a SOLDIER keycard gets almost everything."

"But I'm not-"

"We're here!"

They enter, and it's another swarm of 3rds and 2nds and  _oh stars_  even two 1sts. Cloud glances at his sweat soaked uniform.

"Here, Cloudy." Zack points at a small line of people before waving to a few others. He scans his keycard and it rings a pleasant chime. Cloud's shaky fingers place his own card on the reader, praying for a miracle. The same pleasant chime rings, and Cloud breathes a deep sigh of relief.

"See? Told ya."

Cloud crosses his arms. "How many cadets did you bring here?"

"Um... just you. But Kunsel explained the keycard thingy to me, and I don't really understand why, but that it works."

The choice of food is surprisingly good, and the smell surprisingly somewhat pleasant. They take their trays to a free table. Cloud nibbles on identifiable meat, and then just starts eating.

Zach chuckles. "Yeah, we get a lot better food."

"Hey, Zack?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you know about Materia Use R01?"

Zack looks sheepish. "Uh, well-"

"I have it on my schedule for tomorrow."

"Oh. Oh! It's remedial materia classes, small group instruction for the- you know, the people who just don't get materia. How'd you get _that?_ Did you even handle materia?"

Cloud munches on the  _not_ overcooked and mushy vegetables. "Well, we were supposed to start next month, but... this happened."

"Hey, it's not all bad. We got to meet, you got to eat! Hey, you still have like over an hour, right? I'll show you around!"


	6. 16:31, Friday

Oh, so you're _not_ a system error."

Cloud stands ready in front of another instructor.

"Whatever catastrophe you've caused to land here must have been spectacular." Sergeant Nats deadpans in the same flat tone. "Please take a seat." Cloud obeys, breathing slowly and deeply. "Right. All of you for one reason or another are walking disasters, and I've been tasked with getting you to a not-disaster level of competence."

He sighs. "You all have, or  _should_ have, plenty of basic experience with materia, so I'll spare you the introductions."

Cloud recites passages from the books in his head.

"Today we'll be using a barrier materia. Level one, theoretically no chance of doing harm. Let's go. Oh, from now on we're meeting in Training Room 16F. I'll update that on your schedules."

They leave in an odd silence, the other five students just as desolate as Cloud. They march, as if to an execution, to a fairly spacious training room. Cloud startles as Nats hands him a smooth, green ball. "Alright, spread out, equip it, and try to cast."

The ball feels heavy for it's size. There's something swirling inside of it, a sort of fine mist. Cloud thinks about the theory.  _Barrier materia create an impenetrable wall resistant to physical or magic attacks. The level one spell is "barrier", effective only against physical attacks._

_Focus on the effects of the spell, visualise your MP gathering, and then moving out, through the materia._

MP. Mana. Energy- like, the feeling in his gut? He shoves it out. The materia rapidly warms up, and then becomes hotter and hotter until he feels it burning, but he can't let go- then a huge, translucent barrer forms, and before Cloud can speak he hears shouting, and then he passes out.

.............

He comes to with a sharp gasp. He coughs- something was poured down his throat and some of it stuck.

"That  _was_ spectacular." Sergeant Nats' face hovers above him. Cloud raises his hands. They look like someone painted them red. He flexes his fingers. They feel fine.

Nats stands up. "Now what you saw here was an overload. If you put in too much MP and the materia can't handle it, it bursts and you get hit. It shouldn't happen, because synthetic materia are created to automatically regulate power draw, but it happens. Now, back to casting. Strife? You're benched for the remainder, we'll talk after class."

Cloud gets up, groans, and tries to wipe his wet hands on his uniform, only to find it's also soaked. "I'm never getting this out..."

"Careful, Strife. You've lost a lot of blood. There's only so much a cura and an ether can do."

Cload groans again. "Can I go wash it off?"

"If you're not back in five I'll assume you've fainted."

"Kay. Sir." He trudges off outside the training room, suddenly aware he has no idea where the bathroom is. He ackwardly wipes his hands, fishes out his PHS, and fumbles with the screen.

He briefly looks up to see a 3rd staring at him. He shrugs. "Where's the bathroom?"

"Just down the hall." The man points to Cloud's left. "Need a cure?"

"M'fine, thanks." It's a short walk. The doors, however, are locked. "Who locks bathrooms?" He fishes out the keycard and fumbles with the lock. The door clicks open, and he can finally wash his hands and face. He looks up at the mirrors.

Other than the red and drying splotches, he looks fine. His hair is peppered with red spots, and the uniform... he mutters under his breath. "Requisitions." He grabs a fistful of paper towels and dries himself off.

The walk back is uneventful, and he plops down to watch the other students try to cast. It's mostly a progression of slight shimmers or the materia glowing, but not doing anything. He leans back against the wall, yawning. He closes his eyes just for a second.


	7. 17:47, Friday

"Kay, bed time's over."

Cloud blinks. His eyes focus, and he springs up at attention. "Uh, yes sir!"

"Easy there." Nats sits down, gesturing for Cloud to do the same. "Now, why did you try to cast unequipped?"

"Um" Cloud avoids Nats' gaze. "I read there's special armor for that, and I don't have that, sir. The books said you can cast without it, sir."

"But the standard issue- right. I'll get a uniform request for you." Nats leans forward slightly. "Can you tell me what went wrong?"

"I, uh, overloaded the materia, sir?"

"Typically when someone tries to cast unequipped, the spell just fails. So what did you do?"

"Um." Cloud thinks back. "I just... I don't know, pushed the MP in, sir?"

"Hmm." He leans slightly back. "I think I know why you've been assigned to me."

"Sir?"

"There's three people I know of who've had the same issue. But these classes aren't going to cut it- we're going to have to get some one on one. Show me your schedule." 

Cloud grabs his sticky PHS and finds the schedule.

Nats grabs the PHS and thumbs through the menus. "We can meet Mondays at 15:00 to 16:30, and Saturdays, 7:00 to whenever you drop."

"Sir-"

"I'll get you Contemporary History waived, that shit's useless anyway, and if your drill Sergeant complains about skipping morning runs- send him to me."

"Um. Thank you, sir?"

"Don't thank me. It's not going to be fun."

"Yes sir."

"And drop the sir. I know they drill you in cadet training, but this is SOLDIER. We're war buddies now, hear me? I'm Nats. Sarge Nats, if you're feeling cheeky. Now, you're free for the rest of the day. Go wash, get some sleep, and pick up a new uniform."

"Yes si- Yes, Na- Nats."

"Good. Tomorrow at 7."

Cloud nods.


	8. 18:52, Friday

"Cloud Strife, cadet- that's not right. But-" The teen looks Cloud over one more time. "You're small, and you don't have the glowy eye thingies."

"Just please give me the uniforms."

"But you're a cadet, and only  _one_ of these is a cadet uniform." He points to the navy packet.

"But they're for me. And they've been authorised by two instructors, right?"

"Maybe they got the name wrong?"

"Two separate people?"

"How else would you explain this?"

Cloud pauses. "I- actually, I don't have an explanation. Look, can I just take the cadet uniform, and sort the rest out?"

"But the order was for all four. I can't just give you one."

"Then- look." Cloud grabs his keycard. "I have a SOLDIER keycard. How, I don't know. Why, I don't know. I can get around the building just fine, no matter what I'm wearing. But I need these for classes, alright?"

"Lemme check the keycard."

Cloud hands it over.

The teen passes it over the scanner and squeals. "Wow. Wow, you've got like- like- did you see Sephiroth? Angeal?"

"No."

"Maybe-"

"No."

"But-"

"Give me back my keycard and log those uniforms."

The teen relunctantly hands it over. "Fine." Then frowns. "Who did you get to  _sponsor_ you?"

"Ugh, no one! Look, just... please."

"Not sharing, eh? Alright. Here are your-" the teen wiggles his eyebrows "-uniforms."

Cloud grunts something back, grabs the packets and darts off.


	9. 10:39, Saturday

Bed, sweet bed. It's a lumpy, smelly, cramped bunk, but it's his bunk. It's late enough that most other inhabitants left the building, and so the perfect time to doze off before-

"Cloud?" Footsteps.

"Nnngh."

"Cloud? Hey, can we talk for a sec?"

"Hnngh?"

He feels the sliver of space on the bunk not taken up by his legs get occupied by another body. "You don't really talk to us, but we're worried about you. You came back from that- that class you had all bloody? And this morning you weren't there at the run, and- I mean- I'm worried."

Cloud shifted. "Oh. Hi, Pen." Pennet. Another cadet.

"So what's going on? The were rumors you have a... a sponsor? You, Cloud?"

"Uh, no. No, that was just- requisitions. They're always like that."

"They are, true. But the classes? I haven't seen you in the mess, either."

"I've been eating- odd hours. Lots of work. There was some sort of..." wierd crazy shit "...computer error and I got reassigned to a different group. They're... ah, a bit more advanced."

Pennet's eyebrows rise.

Cloud sighs. "Are you going to believe me if I say I was mysteriously reassigned to two SOLDIER classes and yesterday a materia exploded on me, I wrestled with requisitions about a stupid uniform, and today I tried to stop the explosion thing from happening and downed about fifteen ethers in three hours and I feel dead?"

Pennet's eyebrows rise even higher.

"Because that's what happened. Look- I'm tired, this week feels like a nightmare, and thanks for the support."

Pennet hesistates. "I- I mean- I just want to help. When you're in better shape, we can talk, right?"

"Sure. Thanks."

"See you around."

"Yeah."

Ah. Sleep. Finally.


	10. 07:00, Sunday

Morning runs. Rain or shine, a group of a hundred or so hopefuls file out and join the small handful of people voluntarily on the track every morning. They set a lesuirely pace, doing just enough not to get yelled at.

It's raining. A soft pitter patter, little enough for the drainage system to still keep up. The instructor retreated to the stands, sharp eyes still scanning for slackers. "Strife! Keep your pace up!"

Cloud is panting. It's only the third lap, but he feels the burning in his thighs, the queasy feeling of just not having enough air, and the moist, not quite waterproof fabric squelching against his body.

His legs fumble. He trips. On nothing, really, just an innocent patch of empty track that he's now staring at. He gets up, ignores the jabs of his instructor, and starts at a slower speed. Another lap in and the rest of the cadets pass him one by one, some laughing and others muttering encouragements.

He finishes. A few minutes behind everyone else, but- Cloud checks the clock again. Over a minute faster than last week's time. He looks back up, and the instructor is waving him over. He curses under his breath, before straightening and saluting.

"Strife- you're weak. I don't have the slightest idea of how you even got in with that absymal hand eye coordination, but the last thing you need is skipping physical training. I know you're a pretty face, but who'd care that much? And don't you need endurance for that kind of thing, anyway?"

"Uh, that kind of thing, sir?"

The instructor narrows his eyes. "Don't play dumb with me, Strife."

Cloud tries to breathe steadily. "I really don't know, sir. It was just as unexpected for me, sir. I've filed to support multiple times, sir. All I know is that that's my schedule, and no one seems to know or be able to change it, sir."

"Really?" Cloud nods. "Huh. And what would happen if you did come here instead?"

"Uh, Na- I mean Sergeant Nats requested that if- in case of concernns I send you to him. Sir."

"Sergeant Nats? Javeer Nats?"

"Um, yes sir?"

"What the  _fuck_ did you get yourself into, cadet?"

"I don't know. Sir."

"Show me that schedule."

Cloud nervously gets his PHS, opens the page, and holds it out.

The instructor whistles. "Military Strategy? I take back what I said- someone has it out for you. Did you cheat on your boyfriend? 'Cause I think he wants you dead."

"Sir, _no._  I do _not_  have a- a boyfriend, and never had one. Sir."

"Then how else do you explain this clusterfuck?"

Cloud shrugs. "The universe has it out for me, or ShinRa computer systems have it out for me, sir."

"I'll try to make some... inquiries, see if we can't get it straightened out."

"Thank you, sir."

"You're welcome. Dismissed."


	11. 12:08, Sunday

In the middle of Sunday, it's a long line to the land lines. Cloud twitches his fingers. He doesn't notice the commotion, just steps closer and closer. He bites his lips. Eventually, it's his turn.

He picks up the phone, dials the number, and crosses his fingers.

"Hello?" The voice is tinny, but it's hers.

"M-ma?"

"Cloud! Honey! How are you doing? Do you have enough socks? Underwear?"

"Yes, ma. I've got enough."

"If you ever need anything, I'll send it right over." Cloud's stomach flips.

"Thanks, ma. Everything's fine."

"That's good to hear. How are your classes?" Cloud inhales sharply. "Are the other boys treating you alright?"

"Yes, ma. My classes- I'm doing ok. They're hard, but it's ok. And, um, I made a friend."

"A friend?"

"Yeah, Zack. He's- we have a class together."

"Wonderful."

"Is everything ok at home?"

"Why, of course. The heating went out a few days ago, but those parents of that friend of yours, Tifa, came over and fixed it in a jiffy. She was asking after you."

"Really?"

"Yes, she seemed very insistent on going to Midgar too. Something about you being silly and getting in trouble without her."

Cloud reddens. "That was once!"

"Oh? Wasn't there that other time-"

"Mom! You're embarassing me."

"But you're my sweet chocobo-"

"Mom!"

"Alright, honey. Now, Cloud- I'm worried."

"Mom?"

"I'm worried you'll get sent to the front."

"Oh. Oh, don't worry, I'm in the Cadet program, they only send the infantry. And, uh, my time's running out."

"Alright. Stay strong, honey. Be careful with ShinRa. I love you."

"I love you too, ma." Click.


	12. 15:17, Sunday

Drn drn drn. Drn drn drn. Drn drn drn. Click. "Yes, hello?"

"Spiky! Hi! I and Kunsel are going to some wutaian restaurant below plate, want to come?"

"Um-"

"Great! I'll see you at the main entrance, kay?"

"Uh-"

"Bye!" Beep beep beep.

Cloud groans, gets up from the bed and stretches. His hands brush against a cabinet and the bed. He reaches for his helmet, hesistates, then takes it with him. He pockets the PHS, checks if the keycard is still there, and sets off. Zack is already waiting, doing squats. There's another SOLDIER 2nd, also wearing a helmet.

"Aww, Spiky, you're also wearing that stupid helmet? Now Kunsel can't even see the spikes."

"I've seen his profile picture, Zack."

"It's not the same. Ok, Cloud? The stubborn helmet guy is Kunsel. Kunsel? You know Cloud."

The 2nd reaches out a hand. "Well, nice to finally see what Zack's been talking about non stop."

Clous shakes it. The hand is firm, but not crushing. "Uh, hi. Yeah, Zack's told me about you, too. And, uh, how you might be able to-"

"Not here."

"Ok."

Zack laughs nervously. "Right. Let's get going, time's flying."

Cloud's never explored the city before, and he's staring at every skyscraper, contraption, the infantry patrolling the streets, the crowds- "Careful, Spiky. These walkways are pretty trippy, huh?" Cloud curses under his breath. "Ha ha, you're not the only one. After I got my enchancements, I couldn't walk straight for a week!" They enter the train station.

Zack steers them towards the back. "I don't like the employee compartments. They're too... quiet."

"Zack was banned from using the train once for disrupting operations."

"Hey! I didn't know materia weren't allowed!"

"They were, but you turned the entire compartment into frogs."

"Hey! I was just trying to-" A horn blares as the train enters the station.

They board. "This is a below plate Sector 6 bound train. Please make sure to have your ID cards ready for the scan." The train lurches forward, and Cloud feels himself becoming sick.

"Spiky?"

"Motion sickness." Cloud mutters. "I'll be fine."

"If you say so. Hey, Kunsel, do you have any tips for-"

Cloud tunes out the rest, focusing on keeping his lunch. He briefly looks up as the scanner passes them. They finally arrive, and he eagerly steps out of the train. The station looks just like the one above plate, but there's a griminess to it, and the people waiting seem just slightly less well kempt. They leave the station, and the buildings get worse. Zack is almost bouncing as he leads them through increasingly dilapidated streets, finally arriving at a large dingy hut with a half working neon sign on it.

"There! The Cuchulain. Luxiere said it's pretty good."

Cloud raises his eyebrows.

"And if it's not- well, that's what the increased immunity to poison is for."

"Zack, I'm not-" Cloud feels a hand tug him forward. He sighs, letting himself be drawn into the tent like structure. The first thing that Cloud notices is the smell. It's a very pleasant, spicy, warm aroma, with hints of earthy tones. Then he sees the patrons- mostly darker skinned, and the language they're talking in is definitely not Standard. There are men and women, young and old, and all of them look uneasy at the three ShinRa employees entering. A few glare.

Zack coughs. "Just a friendly meeting, we're off duty." The patrons turn away, muttering things under their breath that Cloud can't imagine are flattering. He tugs his helmet on tighter. Zack fearlessly approaches what seems to be the counter. "My buddy Luxiere recommended this place- he says he's a regular?"

The old woman behind the blat squints. "And you are?"

"Zack Fair, ma'am."

"Ah!" She brightens up. "Yes, yes, he's a good boy. Helps out from time to time. Now you boys would like the regular, eh?"

"Sure thing."

"Go take a seat and I'll be right back with it. Anything to drink?"

"I'll take Oolong tea." Kunsel smiles.

Cloud shrugs. "Uh, water?"

Zack's smile could power a building. "Just water, too."

They find a small, empty table in the corner. Kunsel leans forward. "I checked your schedule, Cloud."

Cloud stiffens. "What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing." Kunsel taps on his chin. "That's the problem. It's all been approved by someone high up, and when you pestered technical, they sent it up to make sure- and apparently it's legit."

"Someone high up? Aren't you guys 2nds?"

"Still have plenty of bosses. So, no mysterious strangers? You didn't notice anyone watching you? Any other odd occurences?"

"No."

Zack furrows his brows. "I could ask Angeal. Or maybe director Lazard? He should know, right?"

"No! No, I mean- don't bother them, Zack. It's nothing."

"It's not nothing, Spike."

"Hmm. Don't ask Lazard yet, Zack. I'll monitor Cloud's account, and if anyone modifies it again I'll run a trace."

"Kay. Right. See, Cloud? We'll get this sorted out. Now, I think that's our food on the counter there. I'll go get it."

Cloud turns to the other 2nd. "Hey, Kunsel? I have a question- I've got two sets of uniforms, and I need a place to change."


	13. 14:24, Monday

There's one fundamental difference between the bathrooms on one side and the other of The Door. Of course there's the matter of smell, overall cleanliness, toilet paper quality, and the like, but the biggest lies in the stall doors. The ones on the better side have small, plastic strips running across the sides, plugging those ever present huge gaps on either side of the doors.

Cloud wiggles out of one uniform, twisting around in the small space, taking care not to knock off the fresh set off the toilet seat. He folds it into a bag. Then he opens the new one, and slowly dresses up again. It fits considerably better than the one he took off. A short while later a nondescript, helmeted Cloud exits the stall.

He sets the bag in a cabinet under the sink.

He can feel his heart rate rise as he steps back out onto the corridor. He checks his PHS, and tries to remember the route without glancing too often. This time, no one is paying attention to him. Office workers slip past, SOLDIERs stand around chatting, and he's just one more helmet going to it's destination.

It's almost 30 minutes before the meeting time, and the corridor is empty. Cloud is just about to slump back and wait when one of the doors flies open and reveals some office worker precariously balancing boxes on his hand. "Oh! Oh, thank goodness. You there, hey, could you help me?"

There are drops of sweat running down his neck, but he briskly walks over to the man and braces for the load. It's surprsingly light, if ackward to hold. The worker dissapears back into the office and emerges with another stack. "Thanks. Can I borrow you for ten minutes? Just to carry this to the science department."

"Uh, sure."

The man smiles, then starts walking. "Really, thanks. How do you guys even see with those helmets?"

"You get used to it." Cloud shifts the boxes. "Aren't there trolleys for this?" He keeps his tone steady.

"It takes longer to get them than to walk twice."

"Ah. Requisitions."

The man snorts. "Yeah. I swear they'd even make the General wait."

Cloud chuckles. "Yeah. Yeah, I can see that."

"Ok, just through these doors." The man balances the boxes, reaches down into his pocket- the boxes are sent flying, the man is crumpled on the floor and Cloud barely manages to hold on. "Sir, are you-"

"Finally. Give me these." A woman in a lab coat standing in the open doorway grabs the boxes from Cloud. "Clean this up and bring it inside." She turns and the door closes behind her.

Cloud helps the man up. "I'm fine, I'm fine. Thanks again." They pick the boxes up. "Eh. No one appreciates the office workers, you know?" The man sighs as he opens the door.

There's a big, cluttered desk, and on top are the boxes. "What are you waiting for? Put that down." The man complies, trying to apologise. "Just shut up and go."

Cloud deposits his own on the desk, and turns to leave.

"You."

He stops mid turn.

"Name?"

Oh god. "Cloud Strife."

"How fortunate. Come here." It's a fairly young looking woman with glasses and short brown hair. Cloud's eyes slide onto an ID plaquard.

Prof. C. Rayleigh  
Sci. Dep.  
Director

"Right. We need to schedule your tests." She peers at a screen on the side, then clicks a few times. "How does Saturday afternoon sound? Alternatively Tuedsay."

"I'm sorry, tests?"

"Did you hit your head? Yes. Tests. Teests."

"Um, saturday?"

"Great. Now shoo."

As he's leaving he can hear a soft mutter. "I swear this was easier when Hojo was around..."

He very quickly walks away.


	14. 16:20, Monday

"Ok, enough for today. I suppose congratulations are in order; you managed a barrier."

Cloud snorts, sets the materia aside, wipes his face with a towel, and downs the ether in one gulp. "Barely." He picks up his helmet and puts in on.

"You think next time we'll try fire? Maybe you won't burn down the gym."

"Very funny."

"Yes, I though so. Take care."

"Bye."

Cloud quickly makes his way to the bathroom, takes out the uniform, and changes. He throws the bag over his shoulder and goes through The Door. He leaves the bag on his bunk and rushes to the next class. He just about makes it to the shooting range as the group is filing in.

"And the midget is here. Alright, everyone grab a handgun, point it  _down,_ away from people. Take some ammunition. Make sure the safeties are on. I'm not liable for your stupidity. Grab a pair of earmuffs, and go on and find an empty lane. I'll approach each of you individually."

Cloud takes the weapon, looks to make sure the safety is on- it's on- and reaches out to- bam. He instinctively ducks down and tries to cover his ears. He looks up.

"Avery- you failed. Leave the weapon, get your stuff, you're discharged. Now this is why we store the practice guns empty, point away from people, and always, always check the safety. There's that one idiot in every group. Everyone else, continue."

Earmuffs now on, Cloud steps into the range. He notices a redhead casually hit two bull's eyes. The redhead turns and winks at Cloud before resuming practice. Cloud deliberately walks in the other direction. There's a nice, empty lane in the middle of nice, empty lanes, and he settles into what he was taught.

Feet shoulder width, slight lean forward, arms extended in a triangle. Firm grip on the weapon. He focuses on his sights- slap. Cloud tumbles forward. He quickly grabs the handgun and scampers back, off the lane. He moves to get up, but something is holding him down.

Someone.

Someone shifts one earmuff. "It's really easy to get knocked off balance with that stance. I mean, it's good if you're shooting something far away, but close quarters? You're going down."

A hand reaches for his handgun, and before Cloud can grasp it, it's gone. "And you're dead. Say, how about I show you a few things?"

Cloud shifts the earmuff back in place, shakes his head, and considers shouting. He glances back. The instructor is far off on the other side, busy with someone. Cloud looks up. It's the redhead, smirking, twirling the handgun in his hand.

Cloud finally notices the blue suit. He yelps, stands up and backs away. The Turk frowns, stops twirling, and visibly sighs, then gestures what Cloud assumes to be "come here."

The redhead stands with one leg forward, both hands bent. One holding the weapon at an almost sideways angle, the other palming the weapon from the front. He shoots, hitting the target, then presses the weapon close to his chest. He flips the safety and hands the weapon to Cloud, before repeating the motion.

Cloud places his leg forward, juts his arm out and holds the weapon at an angle. He covers it with his other hand. It feels ackward, but reasonably stable. The redhead nods, and steps over. Cloud can feel hands on his thighs as the redhead adjusts Cloud's position, then on his arms.

The redhead shows a thumbs up. Cloud focuses and shoots. It hits remarkably close, and Cloud shoots a few times, trying to maintain the stance. Something pushes him from behind, and Cloud doesn't fall over, but staggers. He glances back at the grinning redhead. The Turk shows another thumbs up, and points towards the exit.

Cloud watches the Turk leave. He shakes his head, and turns back to the target. He tries the odd stance a few more times before switching back. A tingle goes down his spine, and he instinctively turns towards something- a camera in the corner of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, anyone who has ever held a firearm will know that our resident redhead was acting incredibly irresponsibly and deserves to be shot, and that Cloud's position was tots fine. I'm also taking a lot of liberties on account of there being instant healing magic stuff.
> 
> Yes, I am aware the CAR system is barely used and rather ineffective, but it looks cool and isn't this also about looking cool?
> 
> If not being true to life in a lot of places (shooting ranges don't look like that, uniforms don't work that way, who designed ShinRa security because it sucks, etc.) bugs you, feel free to comment.


	15. 12:14, Tuesday

Tuesday is shaping up to the best day of the week. No wierd classes, no crazy Turks, and entirely unremarkable, if frustrating, subjects. An almost entirely normal lunch break, as he slips into his other uniform and casually walks into the SOLDIER cafeteria. He scans his keycard, steps into line, and thinks about whether it should be chicken or vegetarian today. Everyone else is minding their own business, and he can simply enjoy the moment.

"Spiky! Spike, is that you?" An overly enthusiastic ball of purple rams him.

"Zack... need... air..."

"Oh!" Cloud decompresses. "You look good in blue."

"You look terrible in purple."

"Hey! I always look gorgeous."

"Hmm. You think I should ask Nats if I can practice frog on you?" Chicken. It's real, actual chicken. Cloud grabs a portion. Zack follows right after.

"Ha, I doubt you even could, remedial materia class."

"He's teaching me one on one."

"What? How come I never got that? The closest I ever got was when Genesis tried to fry me."

"Ouch." They settle on a table.

"Angeal saved me."

"I guess I should thank him, or there wouldn't be a Zack now."

"I'm glad you don't have that hero worship."

"Hero worship?"

"Yeah." Zack stuffs a forkful of rice into his mouth. "Iz thut sum-"

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Zack chews and swallows. "Heh, you sound just like him! Always on about behaving properly. Anyways, yeah, didn't you notice? Some guys are just really into... you've heard of Keepers of Honor, Red Leather and Silver Elite?"

Cloud shudders. "Yeah. Yeah. I try to avoid the most... active members."

"Me too- but sometimes they find out the craziest stuff- like what kind of shampoo Seph uses."

"The... General?"

"He doesn't mind when I call him Seph."

"Right." It was supposed to be a nice, normal day- no. It  _is_ a nice, normal day. "Hey, Zack?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think you can help me with some sword practice?"

"I'd love to, but- oh, I was supposed to tell you."

"What?"

"Angeal's getting sent to help wrap things up in Wutai, and since he's my mentor, I'm going, too. Only for a few weeks, don't worry!"

"Wait, Lieutenant Angeal's your mentor?"

"Of course, everyone knows- oh. Eh. I'm bad at this. That's why I was supposed to take Military Strategy 3. I can't become a 1st if I don't pass that- but I guess I'll have to wait till next semester..."

"It'll work out." And Cloud will be all alone in hell. "It'll be ok."

"I'll call! I'll hog all of the lines, and call every day!"

"It's ok, Zack." It's not, and Cloud is going to die in the first holo excercise from a heart attack.

"But how are you going to make it without me?"

"Um. I'll manage. There's still Kunsel." And that redhead Turk who Cloud is fairly sure was trying to pick him up- ugh.

"Spike..."

"Zack- you have a job. That's ok." How isn't he fainting yet?

"Kay."

"We can still hang out before you leave?"

"Yeah! I know this _other_ place-"

"Text me, ok? I have class soon."

"Sure."

Cloud can't change back fast enough.


	16. 21:56, Tuesday

It was a normal day, and aside from the news Zack is leaving- it's all good. All good. There is absolutely no need to be worried at all about any upcoming events, and Cloud can simply settle in to read another chapter to get _s_ _ufficiently_  prepared for another _unremarkable_  day.

He leans back against the wall of his favorite, empty corridor, breathes deeply, and busily engages with the laptop screen.

Footsteps. A sort of quiet staccato, with an odd, sometimes uneven pace. They get louder and louder, then stop. Cloud looks up. It's the Turk. Cloud groans. "With all due respect, sir, don't you have anything better to do?"

"Sir? I like that." The Turk crouches down next to Cloud. "Whatch'ya doing?"

"Atttempting to study, sir."

"What for?"

"Military Strategy 301, sir."

"Pfft. No one studies that."

"May I please be left alone, sir?"

"How about we go for some target practice?" The Turk's eyebrows wiggle.

"Sir, please." Cloud keeps his face even.

Now the redhead's frowning. "What's so special about you?"

"Huh?"

"You've got a nice ass," Cloud splutters, "but you're apparently straight, and you're a boring bookworm to boot."

"If I'm so boring, can I please go back to this book, sir?"

"That's the thing- how can someone like you attract so much attention?"

"I don't know, sir."

The redhead slumps down to sit. "I'm Reno."

"Cloud. I guess you already knew that, sir."

"Geez, skip the sir."

"I'm not getting any studying done this evening."

"Nope."

Cloud sighs and sets the laptop aside. "What's the reason?"

"Hmm?"

"Why did I get that schedule change? What's going on? I honestly don't know."

"Funny thing is, I don't either. I was just supposed to get a basic psych profile. I figured it was some favor or another, but looks like a bigger mess. Heh."

Cloud shrugs.

"So, maybe you'd like to go to the shooting range? I can show you some cool weapons, not those pop guns you guys get."

Cloud sighs. "I'd rather practice the stances."

Reno raises his brow at Cloud. "You are officially the most boring person I have ever met, and my partner is mute."

A minute later, laptop packed up and ready to go, Cloud follows Reno. He takes a different route than Cloud's used to, and it soon becomes clear they're going somewhere else. "The infantry range is meh. Can't even practice sniping properly. It's no wonder most of them can't shoot."

Cloud shrugs.

"Alright- what are your interests? What do you do in your spare time?"

"I study. I spend time with Zack."

"Right. Anything else? Video games? Movies? Porn?"

"I- I like sim games? I didn't play any lately, this is a loaned laptop. Other than that- not really."

"Dude, you don't watch porn?"

"Uh, no?"

"Alcohol?"

"No!"

"You're 16."

"Yes."

"Did you get tested for some personality disorder?"

"Hey!"

"The more I know, the more I think I don't want to know."

"Not everyone has to like being rowdy. It's called being an introvert."

"We need to go out drinking sometime."

"Thanks, I'll pass."

"I'll post embarassing photos of you in your underwear if you don't."

"That's... blackmail."

"I'm a Turk. I can do that."

"And it's creepy you were watching me change."

"In your dreams. I'm sure there's a recording somewhere, though. Kay, we're almost there." Reno scans his keycard, and holds the door open. "Ladies first."

Cloud immediately kicks Reno in the shin.

"Aw fuck, why did you do that?"

"There's a line, and you crossed it."

"Fiesty. I like that."

Cloud decides that's not worth the response.

"Ok, just down here. Now, watch- these are my personal favorites."

Cloud groans. Loudly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cloud's tired, and thus a lot more irritable than usual.


	17. 01:02, Wednesday

It's over an hour past curfew, his body is still tingling from the impromptu cures, and he can't stop twitching at every minor sound other than his own movements. The corridors are mostly quiet, echoing every footstep. Something hisses above him- he pivots and stares. It's an air vent, not a flamethrower, Cloud tries to assure himself.

The barracks are just a few corridors down, just a few minutes and he can fall down on the bed, shower be damned. Maybe he'll brush his teeth. Possibly. A change of underwear would probably be useful. Cloud's fantasising is cut short as a short, uniformed infantryman holds up a hand. "Cadet, may I see your pass?" The voice is remarkably high pitched.

Cloud eyes the helmet and hands out his keycard.

"That's... not a pass."

"No, but it means curfew doesn't apply to me. Unfortunately."

The guy stares dumbly at the plastic rectangle. "That's not a pass."

Another tingle passes down his spine. "Scan it."

"I- that's not a pass! I'll call my supervisor."

Cloud sighs, sits down on the floor, leans against the wall and closes his eyes. He twitches as another hiss of air blows from a vent.

"You- you can't do that. You need to wait for my supervisor."

"I am waiting."

"I'm- I'm reporting you!" Cloud hears him fumbling with the radio. "Sergeant Avict, sir, I've got a code... um... I've got a cadet past curfew- he doesn't have a pass, sir."

Breathe. In, out.

"Key... card, sir? Yes. Oh. Should I scan it, sir?" More fumbling. "It says here: Cloud Strife, cadet, clearance blue." The infantryman suddenly stiffens, and Cloud can hear a faint echo of a voice. Several seconds later, the teen's skin pales. "Yessir! At once, sir!" He disconnects and immediately salutes at Cloud. "Sir, sorry sir!" He hands the keycard back. "Please excuse me, sir, I'm new!"

Cloud stands up. "Can I go?"

"Of- of course sir! I didn't mean-"

"Kay, thanks." He moves on. A short while later there's another infantryman, who just waves him by. Cloud wearily arrives at his dorm room and enters. There are three figures huddled above his bunk, and one of them is unsucessfully attempting to put on Cloud's _o_ _ther_  uniform. "What are you doing with my uniform?"

The figure stops struggling and turns to him. Yosef. "Oh. Cloud!"

Another slaps the guy. Keryl. "Shh! We'll get in trouble."

The third just hesitates and backs away. Penny, of course. "I-I tried to stop them, Cloud, I swear-"

One. Two. Three. Take it easy. "Can you just- put it back?"

Yosef frowns. "No- where'd you get this? Did you steal it? Why is it so- so _small?"_

Keryl also steps forward, dwarfing Pennet behind him. "Yeah. You've been missing a lot of classes. The hell are you up to?"

Easy. "It's small because it's mine, and I'm just with a different group. Can you please put it back, so we can all go to sleep?"

Yosef throws the clothes on Cloud's bed, and steps closer. "But Cloudy, you haven't told us what you've been up to." Something builds up inside Cloud, something like energy before casting a spell.

Keryl lunges forward, and Cloud ducks, scampers under Yosef, reaches out under his bed and-

Cloud blinks. He hears a faint whimpering. He moves, and something moves in front of him. Two figures- covered in blood. In the back, a quivering uniform. As Cloud looks Pennet in the eyes, the latter squeals. He glances at his hands. There's a knife in one, and the other has broken skin at the knuckles. He drops the knife and backs away. He turns, frantically opens the door, and runs.


	18. 02:43, Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cloud is not in trouble, and everything is great!  
> For now.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Cloud doesn't bother to wipe the snot off his face. It's over. Not even half the program, and it's all already over. It's the last time he'll be sitting in this corridor before they'll throw him out. Or put him in prison. Or the rumors are true, and he'll be thrown to the Science Department. Or maybe he should just- footsteps.

"Yo, Cloudy? You there?"

Cloud tries to stop sobbing.

"Hey, you wanna talk about it?"

He curls further in on himself.

"Gaia to Cloud?"

He buries his face in his legs.

"You're not in trouble, yo."

He looks up abruptly. Reno is standing in front of Cloud. "I'm _sniff_  not? Bu-but-"

"Nope. It's all a-okay."

"But-but I _s_ _niff_ attacked them."

"Eh." Reno waves it off. "The grunts got patched up in the infirmary."

Cloud wiped his face on his shirt. "But regulations-" He winces as he moves his injured hand.

"And who's gonna be on the disciplinary committe, huh?" For a brief moment, there's a slight edge to Reno's voice. "Anyways, you up for walking?"

Cloud just pushes himself up, staggers, then leans on the wall for support.

"Kay. You up for carrying your stuff, too?"

"Uh." Cloud raises his hand halfway. "Um."

"Again? Geez." Reno sighs and reaches into a pocket. He pulls out a small vial. "Potion." He hands it out to Cloud.

Cloud grabs it and drinks the entirety. Moments later, the injury heals over. "Thanks?" He pockets the empty vial. "My-my stuff?" He stares at the floor. "So I'm getting discharged."

"Nope, you've moving."

Cloud blinks. "M-moving?"

"I don't know if you're that tired or just slow."

"Hey!"

 _"And_ you're moving in with yours truly, at least until you're a SOLDIER."

Cloud opens his mouth to protest. He closes it after a second.

"Speechless, huh? Now let's go get your things."

They walk back to the barracks, Reno chatting about his apartment and Cloud quietly following behind. The two troopers are still stationed in the corridors, and both look pale and clammy as they not so subtly stare at Cloud's speckled uniform and the Turk.

Reno opens the door. Inside, a lone figure startles into a salute. "Sir!" Pennet, next to whom is a piece of luggge and several folded and unfolded shirts. On the floor, there are two dried red splotches.

"At ease." Pennet relaxes, before spotting Cloud. "Cloud! Oh _shiva,_  I'm sorry-"

Cloud ackwardly shuffles in and shrugs, looking away.

Pennet stares between Cloud and Reno. "Cloud? Are you..."

"He's fine, yo. Now, Cloudy, you getting your stuff or not?"

As Cloud moves to gather his belongings, Pennet goes back to folding his shirts. He periodically glances back at the turk. "So... I'm moving to Jamean's group, or at least until," he looks at the floor, "that... gets cleaned. So... you?"

Cloud inclines his head in the direction of Reno.

Pennet's eyes widen. He mouthes "him?"

Cloud nods slowly.

"C-Cloud, are you still- I mean, you'll be a cadet, right?"

"Um. I think so?"

Pennet takes a deep breath. "Ok. Hey, Cloud?"

"Hmm?"

"Warn me next time, ok?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There'll be a few slower chapters ahead, but Cloud does not get off scot free. It's just going to come later, and it's not going to be pretty.
> 
> Also, I'm not updating tomorrow, because I'm flying across the atlantic to Poland, through Ukraine, and poor students don't pay for in-flight wifi or risk their already meagre bank accounts connecting to dubious airport wifi.


	19. 03:12, Wednesday

S'my room, bathroom, kitchen, living room, aaand your room." There's a pile of boxes in the living room. Reno glares at them. "Aw great, all my stuff! Hey, Cloud? Ya heard your friend, warn a guy."

Cloud shrugs.

"Eh." Reno dissapears into his room.

Cloud pulls his baggage into the side room. It's about the size of the one in the barracks, but with one large bed and a whole lot of closets. Some of the cabinets are open, but empty. He sets his luggage and opens a few. All are empty. He closes them, opens up his baggage, grabs a towel, toiletries and a change of clothes. He steps out into the living room.

"Reno? I'm taking a shower." Cloud dodges the boxes and enters the bathroom. He hears a thud and a few curses.

"Shit- oh, yeah. Go ahead."

"Kay, thanks." Cloud makes sure to lock the door.

He undresses, gets into the sizeable shower, and stares at the tap. It's a cyllindrical fixture with two knobs on either side. He experimentally turns one, and a jet of cold water sprays him from above. He quickly turns it back and stares at the other one.

He hears a muffled voice shout something about temperature control.

He tries the other knob and nothing happens. Now he steps a little to the side and starts fiddling with both knobs- water starts flowing, and when he turns the second one the water changes temperature.

Cloud smacks himself on the face.

He showers quickly, brushes his teeth, eyes his embarassing chocobo pajamas and steps out with a sigh. The boxes are in an even greater state of disarray, and Cloud very carefully navigates through. He hears snickers.

"Nice PJs."

Cloud glowers.

"Well, 'night, princess."

"Night." Cloud closes the door shut, plops down on the bed and drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's today's chapter. I'm just as sleep deprived as Cloud. Believe me, figuring out bathroom fixtures is not easy in this state.
> 
> As I said, there'll be a few slower chapters before something hits the fan.


	20. 09:09, Wednesday

One moment he's not there, the next Cloud's wide awake and staring at an unfamilliar ceiling. He reaches out to grab his PHS, shifts, looks, then leaps off the bed, winces as his muscles protest, and searches. Not on the bed, not under, on the side, baggage- he steps out of the room. Most of the boxes are gone, a table, a sofa and a large TV revealed underneath, and there's a faint sound of snoring.

His PHS is on the table- he flips it open, checking the time-

He's late. Oh _Shiva,_ he missed an entire period. He barrels back into the room and rushes to put on his uniform.

It hits him.

Last night.

What happened? One moment he was there, and then- Cloud can't remember. He holds a shirt and stares blankly. Nothing. He shakes his head, dresses, and thinks about how he's going to explain it to the instructor. He opens the navigation on his PHS, slumps slightly at the meandering route he's supposed to take- two elevators? Really?- and sets out. He blinks at the unfamilliar corridor- he dimly recalls the walk a few hours before, but not quite well enough. The hallway is fairly long, and inlaid with a more polished floor than usual, but at the end there's the standard locked door. Cloud swipes his keycard as usual.

The light blinks red. He tries again, frowning. No go.

He walks back briskly to the apartment. The doors are locked too, and he can't get in. Cloud is about to angrily pound on the door before he stops and reaches for his PHS. Sure enough, Reno's number is already there.

Beep. Beep. Beep. "Ugh?"

"Reno. I can't get out. My keycard doesn't work here."

"Yeah... oh, Cloud. Why'dya wake me? Couldn'cha have waited, we'd get a new card, and- why are you calling me?"

"I'm late for class and I'm stuck in the hallway."

"Oh. Oh, gimme a sec." _Click._

Another click, and the doors open.

"I have food in the fridge, you know." The redhead's hair is somehow even more unkempt.

"I missed the morning run, my first class." Cloud enters and closes the door behind him. "And I'll be late for my next one."

Reno stares at him with a deadpan expression. "And that's why you woke me up? Ya could have at least tried to give an excuse, like 'I'm hungry' or 'what's the net passcode so I can watch porn' or whatever."

"Attendance is important. I'll get points off."

"Just tell 'em it's Turk business, yo." Reno yawns. "Relax a little. Take a day off."

"I can't just- I can't just do that. That's-"

"Against the rules, blah blah blah." Reno stretches his arms. "I'm getting some coffee. Want any?" He turns towards the kitchen.

"No, thanks, but could you at least help me get to class?"

"Not before the coffee."

Cloud groans. "Please?"

Reno turns and eyes Cloud. "You don't deny a man his coffee, yo. Not cool."

Cloud sighs and follows Reno.

"You like toast? Cereal? Eggs?"

"Cereal."

"Ok, cereal is there, milk in the fridge, bowl over there and the cutlery over here. Leave it in the washer afterwards. If you want warm milk, the pots are on this side. I think you can find the stove."

Cloud grabs a bowl and some cereal, uneasily glancing at his PHS. Reno is humming something, waiting for his coffie to brew. Cloud pours some milk into the bowl. He stares at it, knots tying in his stomach. The coffie machine chirps. Cloud retreats to the living room. He sits down on the sofa and starts eating. He crunches through a few mouthfulls, keeping his gaze low.

"Ahh." Reno sits down on the other side. "Coffee. You watch anything?" He tilts his head at the TV.

Cloud mutely shakes his head.

"I'm not a psychologist, but I think you're a big ball of nerves and you need to relax."

The corners of Cloud's lips tilt upwards.

"So what's bugging you?"

"Honestly, this week was... crazy. It started with a schedule change, then the classes were crazy and-" He takes a breath. "And then some science lady acts all wierd and then there's _you."_

Reno nods.

Cloud blinks incredulously. "And now I'm apparently going to live with a _Turk_ after assaulting my classmates."

"That's a lot of shit to deal with."

"..." He eats another spoonful. "That's why you wanted to go blow stuff up?"

Reno shrugs. "Watching things blow up is proven to be therapeutic."

"And running after me with a flamethrower?"

"Some friendly competition."

"I... see."

"The point is, we all have to deal with stress somehow. You're bottling it all up, and it's not pretty when it blows. Not a good trait for a future SOLDIER."

"How do you know I'll even make it?" Cloud says before he can catch himself.

Reno cracks a smile. "Call it intuition." He leans back on the sofa. "So what do you say? A day off?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hate. Jet. Lag.


	21. 10:43, Wednesday

His finger hovers above the call button for a moment. He presses it. A few beeps later, the call connects. "Hi, Zack?"

"Spiky? Hey what's up? Don't you have class now?"

"Yeah, about that... are you free now?"

"Still have stuff to pack up- I'm not leaving without my boxers. No sir."

"Oh."

"But you can come visit! Room 471A."

"It's not going to bother you?"

"What? No! Wait, Spike, what _are_ you doing? Are you skipping class?"

"It's- complicated."

"Are you in trouble? Are you hurt? Oh _Shiva,_ did-"

"I'm ok, Zack. I'm not in trouble, and I'm not hurt." He absently flexes his hand. it's still somewhat stiff. "We'll talk when I get there."

"That doesn't sound like you're ok."

"I'm really fine, Zack."

"Still not convincing."

"Ok, but I need my PHS to get there."

"... fine."

"See you soon." Cloud disconnects before Zack can respond. He opens the navigation. 471A- 47th floor. He gets to the elevtor, scans his new keycard, and watches the numbers go down to 50. He steps out, walks to the other side of the room and enters another elevator. This time, it goes down to 47.

This floor is far more active, but Cloud doesn't pay much attention to the SOLDIERs miling about, just as they don't glance at his own helmeted self- until he almost runs into one. He pauses and looks up. The 3rd is standing still, his considerable heft pressed against the wall of the corridor.

Cloud's eyes move further, and in a split second his own body is similarly positioned, clearing the hallway for the ground eating strides of a man everyone could recognise.

General Sephiroth.

The floor suddenly becomes fascinating, and he spends several seconds tracing the precise lines of the textured tiles. He looks up- the 3rd is already a few steps away, moving on, and only the General's back is visible. He releases a breath Cloud didn't realise he was holding. A few corridors down, Cloud's heart rate evens out. He quickly arrives at his destination.

Cloud knocks.

There are faint shuffling sounds, a muffled voice yelling something, and eventually the sound of a door being opened.

"Spike!" Zack is sparsely dressed, sporting only boxers with small racing cars. "Sorry for the mess, heh. Roommate's out, so I just... uh. Um, come in."

Cloud enters and sidesteps the piles of questionable items. The quarters are a little larger than his old dorms, with two beds and plenty of storage space, and a door that leads to a small bathroom. He settles on an small empty patch on one of the beds.

"So what happened, Spike?" Zack looks like he's trying to fold a shirt, but Cloud can't tell the difference between the folded and unfolded ones.

"I...." Cloud hesitates. "I... uh, I had a fight with my roommates."

Zack immediately starts looking over Cloud. "You said you weren't hurt! You aren't, right? I have potions-"

"I'm fine. Just-"

"Cloud-"

"Zack."

"Ok, ok."

"So I managed to... well, I hurt them." Zack starts ro interject, but stops himself. "And I'm _not_ in trouble, apparently, but I got to move in with a Turk."

Zack's eyes widen. "Turk? What? Which Turk? They'll take advantage of you, Turks are really dangerous! We need to get you out of there! Who is it?"

"Reno."

"What!? Reno is- is- he's bad, Cloud! He can do bad things, especially to young, impressionable youths- did he do anything? Is that why you're here? Is-"

"Zack."

"-pressuring you into something-"

"Zack!"

"-not ready- oh, sorry. Yes, Cloud?"

"He's actually the one who suggested I should talk to you. And to take a day off."

"Oh. Oh. So- but he's still dangerous, Cloud."

"Zack, thank you for the advice."

"Wait. Take a day off? So you _are_  skipping class?"

Cloud shrugs. "I'll go for the afternoon ones. But- yeah. Yeah, I guess I am." He cringes as Zack tries to fold another shirt. "Hey, I can help you pack."

"Thanks, Spike, I can-" Cloud takes the shirt, folds it neatly, and hands it back to Zack. "Nice!"

"Yeah. My ma taught me." Cloud folds another one, showing Zack the movements. "Here." Zack copies them, sloppily, but still far better than his previous attempts.

"Whoa. But you're still skipping class."

"Like you haven't, ever."

"Um. Um, well, but you're always so... so honorable! Reno's trying to corrupt you, I knew it!"

Cloud laughs. "I just think I needed it." He points at Zack's bag. "I can show you how to pack it up, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know according to canon floors 60 and up are for the Science Department and President ShinRa, but I already fudged it and I'm putting the Science Department's crazier stuff in the basement, where it hopefully won't eat people.


	22. 12:22, Wednesday

Ping.

Cloud sets aside his fork and looks at his PHS. He frowns at the menu that wasn't there before. _Missions._

'Mission request: Insurgent investigation, BP Sector 6. Detailed location on map. Specifics ask squad leader.

D/T/P: Today; 14:00; -

Additional information: _Breifing in room 24C2. All personnel requested to be plain clothes, and to have no visible weapons. Use concealed holster for handgun.'_

He frowns, exits the menu, and goes into messages. He hits 'Technical Support.'

'Priority:' Cloud's fingers hover above the keys. 'Priority: Low. Category: Schedule. Issue: I got a mission and it's the same time as a class.'

He sets aside the PHS and goes back to eating. Ping. Cloud jerks up in surprise.

'Mission requests supercede classes unless otherwise specified. All absences due to missions are excused.'

He quickly types a response. 'But I'm a cadet.'

'All ShinRa personnel may recieve mission requests, as per Regulation CC19, Section 7, Paragraph 14. Exemptions may be granted by filing form 1VF3.'

Cloud resists throwing the PHS against the wall. 'Thanks for the quick reply.'

'You're welcome. Have a nice day. Sincerely, K.'

Cloud grins and shakes his head, then sobers up. He finishes the rest of the meal and makes his way back up.

.............

"Everyone is here, yes?" A young, red headed woman is speaking in front of the cadets from Cloud's squad. Everyone is here- Pennet, Jamean, Keryl, a few others Cloud can't remember the names of- except for Yosef. "Alright. My name is Cissnei, and I'm the contact for our target today."

Cloud tries to signal to Keryl, but the latter avoids him. "Our target is Barret Wallace." Cissnei pulls up a picture of a large, muscular man with what appeared to be a weapon instead of a hand on a projector. "The target has aquired and passed on key information to ShinRa's _c_ _ompetitors._  I am posing as a disgrunted ShinRa employee seeking to pass on more of such information, and have been in contact with the target previously."

"Now, your job is to serve as a secondary layer of defense if we fail to apprehend the target. Each of you will enter the field at a different time, and will patrol designated areas. Make sure not to have your hangun or PHS visible." She pulls up a map, and a diagram. "Now, I'll be going over each of your assignments, starting with Cadet Jamean...'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this seems like filler, it's a setup for tomorrow's chapter which will hopefully be just a tad more interesting.


	23. 16:43, Wednesday

If there is anything more boring than standard patrol duty, this has to be it. Cloud is sitting on a dull rock in the middle of a dusty, dowtrodden alleyway, pretending to find the broken down landscape in any way fascinating. He swats a bug off his pants. Another one buzzes around his ear, and he waves at it in frustration. He shifts, trying to find some position that isn't immediately uncomfortable.

Someone approaches. Cloud makes a show of lazily looking up, yellow bangs half hanging over his eyes, before his head snaps up at the newcomer. "Keryl?"

"Hi, Cloud." Keryl waves at him and glances around.

"Did something happen?"

"Uh, sort of. I got an extra assignment, but I need your help."

Cloud hops off the rock. "Sure." Cloud hesitates. "Keryl- I'm sorry-"

"It's ok. Can you follow me? It's a ways off." Keryl gestures to another rank alleyway.

"Yeah, yeah..." Cloud follows Keryl's lead. "Uh, hey, Keryl?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's Yosef?"

Something flashes across Keryl's eyes. "He couldn't come today."

"Oh. So, what are we doing?"

"I'll explain when we get there, ok?" Keryl sets a quick pace, and the alleyways soon give way to abandoned buildings.

Cloud glances around. The shadows dance eerily from the scant lights scattered around. "So is it far?"

"Just here."

"So, what are we-" Cloud feels an arm wrap around his throat, and a weight dragging him slightly backwards, off balance. He gasps and struggles, and then the he sees a glint of silver in front of his face. He stills.

He can feel the edge of the knife on the skin of his throat, and a soft and vehement whisper by his ear. "You thought I forgave you, huh? They said he might never wake up. They said he's lucky he's even alive. You freak, you fucking monster." Keryl holds it a little tighter, and suddenly Cloud feels a trickle down his neck. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard."

Cloud slowly reaches for his handgun, but Keryl twists Cloud's arm, grabs the weapon and throws it somewhere in the ruins. Cloud stills again, breathing shallowly.

One, two- three. Cloud kicks his leg up, hard, and Keryl bends forward, groaning. Cloud ducks, scampers out and tries to run, trips, falls face first into the mud. Before he can recover, Keryl's foot is on his back. "You little fucker! Trying to run?"

Cloud twists around and manages to destabilize Keryl. He immediately stands up and turns to flee- he drops to the ground, clutching his leg. Keryl is standing above him, gun pointed at Cloud. Cloud can see Keryl's finger begin to press in slow motion, and he closes his eyes and winces.

**Bang.**

Cloud's eyes fly open, and suddenly, Keryl's body is turned around. Cloud shoots up and sprints to the nearest building, behind a wall. His leg collapses underneath him, and Cloud can see his pants are soaked clean through. He shuffles and stares from behind cover.

Tha target! The target is running right between the buildings, shooting at Keryl, who is trying to retreat behind cover.

Cloud ducks back down and pulls his PHS. His hands are starting to shake, and his vision is starting to dim at the edges. He manages to dial, and presses call.

Drn, drn, drn. "Cloudy? What's up? Aren't you on-"

"Reno." He's barely keeping the PHS up. "Keryl... target... blood."

"Fuck. Fuck, where are you?"

"Buildings... abandoned..." Cloud's fingers slip, and he can feel himself sliding down and the world turning to black.


	24. Unknown

Cloud is floating in a sea of green. He's floating, and several shapes appear and dissapear is front of him. A mirror fades into view. He can see himself- he looks older. There's a big sword on his back, he's wearing what seems to be a strange variation of the SOLDIER 1st uniform with a single shoulder pauldron, and there's a strange look in his eyes.

The older him reaches out a hand through the mirror and grabs Cloud's throat. Cloud tries to scream, but the sound is choked by the death grip on his throat. The older him is now stepping out of the mirror, but before the man can fully leeave, green tendrils shoot out of the mirror and drag the older him back in.

Cloud is panting. The mirror fades away, and he's once again floating among the strange shapes.

"Cloud." He hears his name. "You can't stay here, Cloud. It's dangerous." He feels himself moving, flying, almost, nearing a bright, white light-

"He's awake."

"Hmm. I'd have thought- no matter. Tell him he's cleared for non physical classes this week. I'm going back to the project."

"Yes, ma'am."

Cloud hears a door close. He slowly opens his eyes, and immediately closes them as a sharp pain pierces through his skull.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'll dim the lights." Cloud hears footsteps and a switch flip.

He tries again. This time, he's greeted with only a dull headache. His eyes focus. There's a face in front of him, smiling. "Hi! Don't worry, the sensitivity to light should pass in a few minutes. So, tell me your name please?"

"Cloud Strife." Cloud realises he has a body outside of his throbbing head. "Uh." He experimentally tries to move his limbs, but encounters resistance. "I can't move."

"Restraints, for safety. Sorry, had to make sure you're coherent." The face dissapears, replaced by a bland white ceiling. Footsteps, and a few snaps. "There. You're free to go. Now, I'm supposed to tell you you're cleared for non physical classes, and take it easy."

He's on a table, and fumbling off proves to be ackward. He stands up, and looks down. He's only wearing shorts Cloud faces the man. "Where's Keryl? What happened?"

"Who?"

Cloud blinks. "Cadet Keryl Ackhurst?" He glances at the rest of the room. There are piles of equipment Cloud can't even begin to name.

"Sorry, I don't know. As for what happened- sorry, I don't know much, either. Ok, let's see if you can handle light now." The man flips a switch, and several bulbs light up. Cloud winces, but it's manageable. "Great! I'll show you where your stuff is."

"Ok." He's starting to feel the chill.

They leave the room and navigate through a few cramped corridors, before entering what seems to be a waiting room. There are a handful of 3rds sitting there, chatting or keeping otherwise busy. There's also a reception, and the man gestures at the woman manning the desk. "There. The exit is over there." He points at a double door on the other side. "And you can use your PHS after that. Oh, and bathrooms are there if you want to change." He leans his head towards another door.

"Thanks."

The man smiles and leaves back to where they came from. Cloud approaches the desk. The woman looks up and frowns. "Name?"

"Cloud Strife."

"Alright." The woman engages with some screen. "Yes. I'll be right back." She stands up and disappears into the back. A moment later, she's back with a bag. "There you go. Oh, and there's an extra uniform, so you don't have to deal with requisitions." The woman's tone drops at the last word. It picks up again. "And you're scheduled for this Saturday at 3:30. Make sure to be early, ok?"

"Sure." Cloud takes the bag, wishes the receptionist a pleasant day, and ducks into the bathroom to change.

He glances at his PHS. 8:32 AM, Thursday.


	25. 08:36, Thursday

'Ok, wtf happened?' Send.

Ping. 'Cissnei found ya half dead. Target escaped. We're gonna need ya to make a statement.'

'What happened to Keryl?' Hesitation, then send.

Ping. 'Ackhurst Keryl? Dead.' After a moment, there's another message. 'Good riddance. Fucker attacked ya.'

Cloud frowns. 'How do you know that?'

The PHS is silent for a long moment. Finally, it pings. 'Said it right before he croaked. Don't worry about it.'

Cloud's breath hitches, and his fingers hover above the keyboard. He stares at the screen before slowly typing out a word. 'Thanks.'

'No problem. Is 11 ok for the statement? Be at room 5123.'

Cloud glances at the time. His hands are shaking slightly. 'Sure.' He puts the PHS back in his pocket and leans against the bathroom wall. He stands there fo a while, before going to the sinks and splashing his face with cold water. He wipes himself off and takes the PHS out again.

'Kunsel, dp you hae time ttday?' Send.

He sets it aside and splashes himself again.

Ping. Wipe. 'Free now. Room 471V.'

'Thx.' Fumble. Send. 'Be thr soon.' Send again.

He puts on the helmet, stumbles, straightens himself, grabs his things, and leaves the bathroom. The 3rds are still there, waiting, and he's slowly making his way to the double door. Thankfully, a short walk and a single elevator is all it takes to reach the 47th floor, and Cloud manages to keep his balance the entire way. He knocks.

The door opens, revealing the same room layout as Zack's, but with far less clutter. Kunsel's helmeted face looks Cloud over once. "You look like hell." He gestures Cloud inside.

"Yes." Cloud enters, reaches the beds, and collapses on one. "Ugh."

"Give me your PHS, please." Cloud hands it over. Kunsel takes it and puts it in some container. "Alright. I've seen the science department update, an infraction report, your new room placement, and the mission assignment. I assume the mission went pear shaped?"

Cloud breifly describes the scenario. "-and then I woke up in the science department, took my stuff, and here I am."

Kunsel walks over to him. "Show me your eyes."

"Uh, ok?" Cloud takes off his helmet.

Kinsel sits down, leans in and stares. "Mako." Cloud blinks.

"Huh?"

"You've had mako injections. It's not visible if you don't know what to look for, but it's there." He stands up. "My best guess is that you have something they want, but that doesn't explain why they haven't disappeared you yet."

"Disappeared?"

Kunsel looks Cloud in the eyes. "MIA. KIA. Dead. Whatever you prefer. If you didn't see the body, don't believe them." He turns around. "Quite frankly, there's no connection. I don't understand what could anyone want to do with you."

"Ok." Cloud sits up. "I've really, _really_ had enough of this."

"Oh?"

"Everyone keeps telling me they have no frickin' idea what's going on, and I'm done with this. Is this some fucked up experiment? Are they trying to see what crap I can put up with before I snap? Oh wait, I did!"

"That's... not impossible."

"I am _not_  putting up with this! I'm going back to my _normal_ classes, filing a request to change rooms because like _hell I'_ m staying with a crazy, trigger happy, coffee-monster Turk, and maybe whoever is behind this will show up so I can tell them to stuff it."

Kunsel folds his arms. "That's not going to work."

"I don't care!" Cloud's cheeks start feeling wet. "I don't care. I'll just- I'll just resign. Go back to Nibelheim. I can't deal with this."

"That- actually, that might work."

Cloud looks up at Kunsel. He wipes his face. "But isn't there-"

"Oh, there's no chance the paperwork will pass, but it might just give some clues. Are you free today?"

"I- I need to make a statement at 11, and then-" Cloud thinks. "Actually, I'm free."

"Good. Text me when you finish."


	26. 14:43, Thursday

Click. Type, type, click. Cloud gives the form a one over, and clicks 'send.' He opens another copy, and prints it in triplicate. He grabs the stack of forms, signs them, thanks the librarian, and sets off for the Keycard Lady.

A cadet is just leaving her office as he approaches, face red and puffy. Cloud enters, expression grim, shoulders squared, eyes center on the target. "Ma'am."

She squints at him. "I remember you."

He thrusts the forms at her. "I'm submitting my resignation, ma'am. I'd also like two signed copies, please."

Her eyes narrow, and she glances at the paperwork. "You are aware there's a minimum service requirement of 5 years, and that most will be _a_ _utomatically rejected,_ yes?"

"I am aware, ma'am." Cloud pulls out another set of forms. "I'm also filing a request for counseling, ma'am."

She grabs them, thumbs through the pages, and her eyes nearly become slits. "And have you filed form K39B?"

Cloud nods. "Right behind form C17P, ma'am."

"These are available in electronic form-"

"Regulations, specifically Regulation BZ19, paragraph 12, subsection 14, point 3 specifies that all forms can in fact be filed in both electronic and paper form at the same time." He takes a breath. "Ma'am."

Her eyes snap up at him, now wide with surprise. "That... is correct." The corner of her lips titls upwards. "Then I'll just take these and file them, shall I?"

Cloud makes sure to keep his back straight. "As soon as I get two signed copies of each form, with today's date, ma'am."

The corner falls down again, and her face startes to tint red. "Fine." She glares at him.

Cloud smiles politely. "Thank you for your help, ma'am."

She's seething as she hands them over, and Cloud carefuly looks at each page and checks the markings. He looks back at her, smiling. "Thank you again, and have a great day, ma'am."

15:42

"So, anything?"

"There probably isn't going to be anything for at least a week."

"A  _week?_ What am I supposed to do for a week?"

Kunsel looks up from his laptop. "I'd suggest not getting into more trouble, for one." He glances down again. "Actually, that was quick."

"Huh?"

"Your electronic resignation form was just denied."

Cloud jolts up. "It was? How- does this help?"

"It was manually denied."

"So what?"

"So that means someone is watching your profile, just now, and manually flagged it from there."

"And?"

"And that means it's someone who can directly access the database and-"

"Kunsel."

Kinsel coughs. "It's someone high up. Which we already knew, but this narrows it down to basically the board of directors, some administrative personnel, a few scientists, and a few firsts."

"You mentioned it can't be the science department."

"It wouldn't make sense, true. But that still leaves us with about two dozen suspects."

Cloud sighs. "This... is going to take a while, huh?"

"I find it pretty fun, actually."

"You call this _fun?"_

Kunsel grins and is about to speak when his head jerks towards the screen. He stares at it. "Well, this is unexpected."

"What? What happened?"

"Your schedule changed-"

"Ugh."

"-and there's nothing on it. There's just a note asking you to report to Director Reeve Tuesti, the Head of Urban Development, tomorrow at 8."


	27. 21:32, Thursday

Cloud clutches the notes, scanning through and rereading. His other hand is twirling a pen, and his legs set a fast pace. He stops, brows furrowed, and crosses something out. He stops again to fish out his keycard and input the floor. A short ride later, he steps out to change elevators.

And immediately salutes. Passing in the other direction is none other than General Sephiroth, curiously dressed in a more casual outfit, and hair... Cloud stumbles as he scrambles to leave the elevator, incredulous at the sight of the General's _braided_  hair. The door closes, and Cloud shakes his head and moves on.

The apartment is empty, Reno presumably out torturing innocent cadets, and Cloud sets aside the notes in his room. He goes to shower, enjoying the silence. He steps out of the bathroom, taking care not to trail wet splotches behind himself, and goes back to what's ostensibly his room.

The ceiling is still unfamiliar, the bed still odd, and his clothes not quite packed out yet. It doesn't feel real- in fact, the entire week feels like a mirage, some painting or show he seems to be stuck in, poked and prodded for someone's amusement.

He turns on his side. The simple contours of the cupboards are familiar enough, but even that is broken by the too large space between him and the walls. He grabs his PHS and thumbs through the menus. No new messages, the last one still a concerned question from Pennet, preceded by some curt reply from Kunsel.

Cloud stares at the single mission again.

His hands tighten, his face flushes, and his eyes stick to one word, one word only. Cloud's hand reaches upwards, but it grasps air. He can't breathe- he can't take a breath, something is holding his throat, but he can't reach it-

 _"Cloud."_  Despite the heat, Cloud shivers. His other hand drops the PHS and starts clawing at his ear. He's curling in on himself, and he's still desperately trying to breathe.

His head jerks upwards, and he's staring at himself- a more rugged, older, more weary and wild him, and eyes that Cloud can see are glowing, blue and sickly green. His older self is holding him, the force just a smidgen below crushing.

They're floating again in that sea of green, and Cloud is struggling now, fighting to tear the merciless grip away from his throat. There's no give, not even a finger, no matter how hard Cloud kicks or claws or punches. His moves grow weaker, his resolve falters, and he falls limp, staring at those eyes.

The pressure vanishes. Cloud is panting, eyes wide, hands clenched, body taut. He jerks up, staggers to his feet, and bolts to the bathroom. He flips the light on, and then off, closing the door and plunging the bathroom into pitch blackness.

He reaches the toilet and vomits. After a few heaves, he flushes and stays on the floor, slowly breathing and shivering.

He feels his way to the sink. His breath hitches. There, in the otherwise complete darkness of the room, tiny flecks of green stare back at him.

It's a long night.


	28. 07:57, Friday

Cloud enters. A secretary nods to him, smiles, and gestures at another door. "Director Tuesti is waiting for you." He thanks the secretary, takes a deep breath, and enters again. It's a fairly typical office, rendered more spacious by a having only a single occupant and a window overlooking Midgar. A few city maps and several schematics hang on the walls. Behind a desk, there's a middle aged man with black hair. There's a coffee mug on the desk.

"Cadet Strife, yes?" The man gestures Cloud forward.

"Director Tuesti, sir." Cloud cautiously steps closer. He notices a cat doll in the back of the room.

"Please, take a seat. Tea, coffee?"

He sits down and declines. "Thank you, sir."

"Please don't hesitate if you'd like anything." The man leans slightly forward. Cloud edges back. "Firstly, I'd like to apologise. Your case is a unique one, Cadet Strife, and I'm afraid there were several missteps in handling it."

"My case is a unique one? How so, sir?"

"There are several interested parties who would like to see you succeed."

"Sir- interested parties? Why me, sir?"

"Ah. I'm afraid I can't answer your first question. As for the second one, I'm afraid I don't have an answer, but I've been informed you have some extraordinary qualities."

"Can't or won't, sir?"

"I would very much like to, seeing as all this secrecy serves no purpose, but it's unfortunately not my call."

"Sir, is there anything you can tell me?"

The man smiles. "Well, there's quite a lot, but not the things you'd be interested in." The man takes a sip of the coffee. "I do have a proposition, however."

"Sir?"

"I'd like to offer you an internship in my department."

"And- what does that give me, sir?"

"Oh? This past week has been pretty hectic, yes? I'll be frank. Nothing much happens here. It's mostly quiet, solitary work."

"What about my classes, sir?"

The man glances at something on his desk. "The theoretical ones would be waived on account of the internship. The rest- I'm afraid they would remain as is."

"Sir, why- why?"

Another sip. "My department also handles some of the infrastructure used for communications. There's always something to fix or configure. Think of it as an... opportunity." They lock eyes for a brief moment. "Now, are there any other questions you'd like to ask? My secretary will send you the details later."

09:33

"So, should I take it?"

"Take it."

"But he didn't actually _say_ anything."

"Cloud, he more or less _outright_  told you there are several actors working together, and that one or more screwed up somewhere, and that he's picking it up."

"Why can't anyone say anything in plain Standard?"

"It's ShinRa."

"Ugh. Hey, Kunsel?"

"Hmm?"

"I had... I had a wierd... hallucination, yesterday."

"Something voilent and unpleasant, I'm guessing."

"Well, yeah. Yeah, I saw- I saw myself, and it was really wierd, I was choking myself, I think?"

"Ouch."

"It hurt." Cloud absently rubs his neck. "Do you- do you get them, too?"

"Sometimes."

Cloud shifts. "It's from the mako, isn't it?"

"Didn't you cover that in class?"

"Well, funny that, I never even got to those classes."

"Cloud."

"Hmm?"

"That's pretty awful."

"No kidding, right? I'm stuck here. Another four and a half years. I don't think I'm going to make it four and a half years." He buries his face in his hands. Just as soon, he feels a comforting hand on his back.

"You will. We'll figure this out. When Zack comes back, we'll cover you, ok?"

"I- thanks. Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not posting a chapter tomorrow, as I have some familly stuff to take care of, and there's just not going to be enough time.
> 
> College related things will start soon, too :(.


	29. 21:21, Friday

Nothing happened for the rest of the day. Cloud had paced through what felt like half of Headquarters, grabbing his PHS at every chime or sound, but there were no updates.

 _Beep._ Cloud's hand moves so quickly the PHS slips out of his hand and careens out onto the floor. He picks it up, annoyed, and lets out a frustrated sigh at the newly cracked screen. He reads the message.

'Hi. You're ok for materia practice tomorrow. This is also a reminder you're scheduled tomorrow for 3:30 PM at A013. Please make sure to be early!'

Despite the strong urge to deliberately throw the PHS, Cloud pockets it. He makes his way back to the apartment, browsing all the while to see how much of his pay and time would requisitions require for a replacement. The answer is, as always, too much, and only serves to sour his mood more.

There's an odd noise as he enters the apartment. Cloud closes the door behind him. "Reno?"

The bathroom doors fly open, and a half naked Reno waltzes out. "Oh, hi."

Cloud mumbles something back, and attempts to navigate to his room.

The scant towel hanging around Reno's waist threatens to slip, but he seems to be oblivious. "Not even gonna ask why I'm back so early?"

"Reno, get dressed."

"S'hot. And s'my apartment." But just as the towel would fall, Reno shifts it back to it's original position.

Cloud sniffs the air. "Reno, have you been drinking?"

"Of fucking course. Today was fucking insane."

Cloud raises both eyebrows, opens the door to his room, walks in, and closes the door shut. He makes sure to set an alarm on his PHS, grimacing again at the broken display. He sets it next to the bed, and almost takes notes to study for next week, before stopping the motion midway.

He's about to reach for another set of papers when a crash resounds through the room. He cautiously steps out. Another crash, the sound coming from the kitchen. Cloud peers inside. There's a whole floor of broken glass, and a sheepish Reno, now wearing a pair of boxers, standing in the middle. "Uh, oops?"

"Reno, stay there. I'll be back with... do we have a broom anywhere? A vacuum, maybe?"

"Um... ya... closet near the entrance, I... think?"

"Ok, be right back." Cloud makes his way to what is most likely the one Reno mentioned, and very carefuly opens it. He ignores all sorts of dangling paraphenalia, and eventually finds a broom and a pan. He walks back, then brandishes the broom against the onslaught of sharp, pointy objects.

"Thanks!" Reno, undaunted, proceeds to try to grab another glass, and Cloud quickly intervenes.

"No"

"Aw, why?"

"You're drunk."

"S'what?"

"I'm not cleaning up after that, too."

Before Cloud can do anything, Reno takes another glass and balances it on his finger. "See? Was just tryin' to drag you outta your room." He puts it back and giggles.

If looks could kill, Reno would be a smoldering heap of fried rat intestines. "I am going _back_  to my room."

"You're no fun." Cloud's cold, cold heart is not moved. He turns around to leave. "I'm sorry, ok? I'll make it up t'ya." He glances back. "In s'me ways... you're jus' like the General. And I can poke fun at ya, because he's untouchable, yo."

Clous sighs. "Right." He turns back again. "Fine. I'll be right back." Choosing to ignore the unrepentant gleam in Reno's eyes, he puts back the broom, mentally noting to wipe the floor in the morning. After a bit of finagling, the stuff is mostly in the configuration it used to be.

Cloud returns to the sight of Reno lounged on the sofa, tapping away at one of those newfangled touch PHSes. He plops down on the only free spot. "So, what's up?"

Reno looks up. "Want a drink?"

"No."

"Could've asked for tea or somethin'."

"Your definition of tea might be different than mine."

"F'r enough." Reno sets aside the PHS. "T'day was crazy."

"Oh?"

"Did I mention tha' aside from being a beautiful, stoic bastard, the General's also insane?"

 _"You're_  saying someone's insane."

"I'm quirky, yo. He's straight nuts."

Cloud's eyebrows can't possibly go higher at that. "So what happened?"

"S'classified. But I can tell you tha' Tseng- s'my boss- you're not gonna believe this- braided the General's hair. And apparently been doing that for some time."

Grateful now for his lack of beverage, Cloud splutters. "Wai- what?"

"Yup. Saw it. Can't unsee it."

"I mean- I- I saw the General once, in passing, with, uh... but- um. Ah."

"I think the brass' all afflicted with Confuse. 'R maybe their coffee's poisoned or whatever. Tseng talked to me _twice_ over ya. After wednesday, he was frickin' _skittish."_

Cloud's breath hitches. "Uh, yeah, about that- why was I moved?"

"'Cause you're not gonna get knifed in ya sleep by a lil' cadet? Bes' available spot."

"Uh, thanks. I guess."

"Y're welcome. Eh. Shoud've asked Rayleigh for somethin' stronger. The images are seared into my brain." Reno grimaces. "Gah."

Cloud glances at the time. "Hey, uh, Reno?"

"Mhm?"

"It was great to talk and all, but I've got class tomorrow at 7, so, uh, yeah."

"Sure, leave me to my misery. Thn'ks."

"Good night."

"'Night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, I think this is the point I'm officially breaking my daily update schedule. Life just started again, and each short chapter takes about an hour of writing and another hour to edit into some semblance of plot and reason.
> 
> Still, enjoy.


	30. 06:59, Saturday

"Fuck you, Reno." Running at full sprint and between short breaths, Cloud uses his limited but colorful vocabulary to curse at everything Reno, his family, his values, his _goddamn penchant for butting his head into not his damn business._

This morning, Cloud woke up, on his own, at the lesiurely time of 6:41, and discovered his PHS was _not_  in its' designated spot by his bedside, ready to wake Cloud up at the appropriate time. No, it was instead _replaced,_  by a brand new model, lying innocently on the living room table with a brief apology from Reno. Reno, of course, was nowhere to be seen, and the new PHS had a completely different interface that Cloud _did not have time_ to figure out.

There aren't too many people out at this time, allowing him to barrel down the corridors with speed he didn't think he had. But of course, with Cloud's impeccable luck, he rounds a corner and slams head first into someone. Grateful for the helmet's shock absorbing qualities, Cloud takes stock of what his luck brought him this time.

At the sight of the signature blue suit, he straightens to apologise, but lets out the tiniest weary sigh. "I'm very sorry sir. Please excuse me, sir, I was in a hurry. Sir."

The man dusts himself off and stands gracefully. "Please be more careful next time." The man prepares to take a step, but aborts it just as quickly. "If I am not mistaken- Cloud Strife?"

"Yes, sir?" There's a particular finger twitch Cloud's starting to develop.

"You're late for practice." There's the faintest whiff of disapproval in that tone.

Cloud feels a surge of anger. "It's _Reno,_  sir. I had an alarm set, sir."

Something flickers across the man's face, far too quickly for Cloud to understand. "I see. Very well then, proceed."

Cloud starts sprinting again. He doesn't bother to look back, preferring to keep his eyes focused on avoiding obstacles, now handling the corners with more care. He finally reaches his destination, going inside with a huff.

10:31

'Reno, thank you for the new PHS, but please tell me about things like these beforehand. Sincerely, Cloud.' Send.

After a long and much needed shower, Cloud takes some time to figure our his new equipment, grudgingly admitting he does like the new interface. Then, someone calls. Cloud groans. The ringtone is not the standard, uninspired melody preloaded on company models, but a popular pop song called "Crazy Chocobo." Any gratitude Cloud may have felt evaporates in an instant. He answers. "Yes?"

"Hello, this is an automated message from ShinRa Telecommunications. A call is being rerouted to your PHS from-" Here the voice changes from a pleasant prerecorded chime to... Zack's voice? _"-Wutai, Base 3, SOLDIER 2nd class, Zack Fair._ Press pound to accept the call."

He fumbles with the phone, and it takes a few tries to press the key, because the screen keeps dimming. At last, he does it. "Thank you. Please wait while we connect your call."

A few beeps later, it does connect. "Cloud! Hi I'm calling from Wutai, uh, technically from the marshes near Wutai? They're called- I don't know. Some name I can't pronounce."

"Hi Zack. So, um. How... how are you?"

"Uh, it's awesome. I mean we're doing awesome. It's only going to be a month or so. But how are you, Spiky? How are classes? Did Reno do something bad? I'm going to-"

"No, uh, no. he's, uh... well, he keeps messing with my PHS. That's pretty much it."

"Messing with your PHS? How messing with your PHS? Is he leaving inappropriate content? Did he give out your number to hookers!?"

"No! Zack. We're ok. We're getting along better than I did with my previous roommates. Really. Reno is... Reno, but he's not... he's alright. Mostly. I broke my PHS yesterday and he gave me a new one."

"Oh, so everything you do will be recorded by the Turks."

"You mean the entire company's communications aren't being monitored?

"Well, yeah, but. Um. You know what I mean, Spike."

"Zack, I'm... handling it. I've been talking with Kunsel, he really helped a lot, and everything is... well, mostly ok."

"Yeah! Kunsel's awesome. Wait, _mostly_ ok? So what's _not_  ok?"

"I, uh..."

"You're hurt? I knew it. You're hurt and in the hospital and it's some incurable degenerative disease-"

"Zack, I'm fine. Well, I got- it's a long story, but I'll be, uh, an intern."

"Intern?"

"Yeah. With the Urban Development department."

"But I... but I though... you wanted to be a SOLDIER?"

"I think I want some more peace and quiet, actually."

"I'm mean, that's ok, it's ok, Spike, but... I'll miss you."

"I'm kidding, Zack."

"Huh? You're not an intern?"

"No, I _am,_  or will be, anyway, but I'll still... get to be SOLDIER. I think. I, uh, have an appointment with the science department today?"

"Whew. Wait, what!? You're having _appointments in the science department_ and you didn't tell me!?"

"You weren't here, Zack."

"Cloud, just- just- they're not doing anything _bad,_  right?"

"Zack, Kunsel said if they haven't done anything by now, it's even more unlikely when people actually know me."

"I guess you're right."

"So, when you get back-"

"Um, Cloud? Sorry, Angeal's calling. I gotta go. I'll call again!"

"Yeah, bye, Zack." The call disconnects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: I'm a student for the next year.
> 
> Bad news: I'll have to repeat a few classes.
> 
> Other good news: the weather is pretty good here.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy your day, everyone.


	31. 15:10, Saturday

The waiting room is empty, aside from the receptionist. Cloud approaches the desk. "Oh, uh, I'm here. Cloud Strife."

She smiles at him and types something. "Mhm. Thank you, they should be ready in about five minutes."

The room is too small to properly pace, so Cloud chooses instead to lean against the far wall. He tries not to let his nervousness show, but between the finger twitching and lip biting, it's likely written all over his expressions. The double doors open as someone else enters. Cloud's stomach does another double flip, because of course, of _fucking_  course, like he didn't have enough to be scared of already, it's the General.

Vainly attempting to clear his mind of a Turk standing and twirling the lengthy hair, Cloud tries to look anywhere but at the man. Then the man nods to him. Cloud has no idea what to do, so he nods back. The General, seemingly satisfied, goes to sit on one of the nearby chairs.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly, not to hyperventilate. Except the man is looking at him again, and there are even words. "You're scared."

Cloud musters all of his courage to utter a reply. "Ye-s, sir."

"You shouldn't be. Rayleigh is far more careful than Hojo."

"I'm scared of you, sir." The words tumble out of his mouth before Cloud's even aware of them, and now there's nothing he can do.

"Why?"

Entering deer in headlights mode, Cloud's brain stops working. At that very moment, another door opens, and the technician Cloud saw previously pokes his head out. "Cloud Strife?" Taking the opportunity, Cloud mumbles out some apology and quickly enters after the technician, almost shuddering at the weighty gaze on his back- only to be lead through to an elevator, and after that multiple corridors filled with computers and wires and, looking past through a window into one of the rooms, creepy floating shapes in even creepier tanks. This time, Cloud does shudder.

They arrive, and the technician gestures at Cloud to enter. He reluctantly opens the door and shuffles inside. There's a table in the middle, various machines and cabinets, and two people standing in the back, one of whom he recongnises as Dr. Rayleigh. Dr. Rayleigh is currently taking off gloves, and... that's blood, and she's putting on new, clean ones, before turning around and moving towards them. On one step the lab coat shifts, and Cloud sees a small splotch of something dried on the inside. He swallows.

"Boxers only. Clothes here." She points at a small box set aside.

Cloud undresses. It's fairly chilly.

"You can sit."

The table is covered with a thin, white sheet. It's freezing.

Dr. Rayleigh takes a tablet and pen from a nearby shelf. "Did you drink any alcohol, or take any medications recently?"

"No." She checks something off on the screen.

"What did you eat today?"

Cloud give a brief summary of his breakfast and lunch.

"Any effects from the last visit? Nausea, fatigue, unusual sensitivity, nightmares?"

"Uh. Hallucination."

"Mhm." She scribbles something. "Anything notable?"

"I... I was being strangled by myself?"

She crosses something out, then writes more. "Well, it's going to be worse after today, so if you'd like anti-anxiety or sleeping pills, I'll prescribe some. If you get violent, we'll have you here for observation. Alright, lie down."

He lies on the table, feeling goosebumps at the cool, hard surface of the thinly covered metal plate. One of the technicians approaches, and Cloud fights the instinct to wiggle as he feels his arms and legs get immobilised by straps. Something pricks his hand. Something else is strapped on his arm, and he can see a handful of electrodes placed on his chest. The technicians relay some information to Rayleigh as she moves in and out of Cloud's view.

"I'm going to put you under general anaesthesia. When the mask is on, just breathe in, and count down from ten."

"Why?" Cloud's big mouth is not shutting up today.

Her gaze is like nails on a chalkboard. "Because what I do here is not pleasant. If you'd rather be awake and screaming your lungs out, feel free."

He doesn't respond. The technician puts something on his face, and he breathes, deeply. Ten, nine, eight, seve...


	32. Unknown

He's in that vast, green expanse again, staring at indistinct, floating shapes. His hand moves, and- he moves it back, feeling something under him. He shifts, and- the ground? There's pavement. He gets to his feet. The sky is still green and fuzzy, but the ground is sharp, solid.

A building solidifies just in front of him- then another. And another, and soon Cloud is surrounded by structures, but- they're all broken. Empty, twisted, cracked. Ruins. Somewhere on the horizon is a building that seems familliar, but he can't seem to grasp why. He starts walking towards it, avoiding the jutting out pipes and rebar.

He looks up. The sky is now solid, too, the sun shining as if it were midday, but there's something not quite right. It's cold. The sun is high up, illuminating everything, but- Cloud reaches out to touch the concrete. Cold. He pulls back, and sets back out towards the building. Everything seems eerily familliar, but- Cloud gasps. In front of him is a huge, collapsed section of- a plate? Is this- what is this? The building on the horizon- no, it can't be. He shakes his head.

Down on the collapsed part, there's one intact building, looking like... a place of worship. What are these called? Right, church. It's a church. Cloud scans the edge for any path down. He sees a few slabs of concrete and some pipes he could use- yes. He climbs down, slowly, carefully, resting a few times. Before he descends even lower, he takes stock of where the... church is, and moves on.

It's harder to navigate through here, everything smashed into small, sharp pieces. Cloud trips, and hisses. There's a shallow, but long gash on his arm, and it starts dripping freely. Cloud takes off his shirt- he has a shirt? It doesn't matter. He's about to wrap it up, when, right in front of him, the wound starts healing. He stares, right until it's fully healed, and there's not even a single scar. Shaking his head again and with shirt back on, Cloud returns to his journey.

He doesn't know how much time has passed, because the sun doesn't seem to be moving, even as obscured as it is by the rubble. He just walks forward, and eventually, he does emerge- and there it is, the church. It's even more beautiful, up close, with two towers and in a style of architecture Cloud had never seen, even if the roof is caved in, one of the towers collapsed, and the walls are chipped and crumbling.

The entrance is in ruins, too, and he simply walks in, admiring the colorful glass windows, and- in front of the altar- Cloud almost runs up. Flowers. He hasn't seen flowers for- ever since he came to Midgar. These are lush and beautiful, as lively as anything his mother had back home. He crouches down- and-

How did he not notice that before? Kneeling right in front of the altar, past the flowers is the General- what is the General doing here? What- the General stands up, turns around, and-

The entire imange fractures. Cloud reaches out to touch it, but it fades into the green abyss. He's floating, once more grasping at monochromatic swirls. Cloud tries to move around, and as soon as he thinks of taking a step, he lurches forward. He tries again, disoriented by the apparent movement, lacking any visual cues of his changing position. Up. Down. He twists, and tries more, and it's clear now the movement is relative to his perception.

He hears a woosh behind him, and thinks to go _down._  He looks up, and there is that odd, older him, with a hand outstreched, undoubtedly where Cloud's throat had been moments prior. His alter ego pauses at that, but soon lurches after Cloud, the blank face betraying no cause or reason.

Cloud flees, grateful for his new mobility, glancing from time to time at his pursuer. It's a stalemate, the distance between them neither lenghtening, nor getting shorter. Cloud looks back again, and- he trips. There's pavement again, with pipes and rebar and crumbling concrete sticking out, and he scrambles to get up. Behind him, his alter draws the massive sword and slowly approaches closer and closer. Cloud shuffles back. His alter stops right in front of him, raises the sword, then swings it down in one, fell swoop-

**Clang.**

Another blade intercepts it. A thin, long blade. Cloud's head snaps back. The General! What-"Sir?"

The silver haired man doesn't respond, just parries and attacks his alter. Cloud watches as the two start fighting, dancing around each other in almost perfect synchronization. He shakes his head- Cloud needs to run, needs to find a safe spot, needs to avoid this, whatever _this_  is. He clambers into the ruins, checking to make sure that the two are not heading in his direction, and slowly moves through.

He doesn't get very far when clangs resound above him, and he looks up. The two are- they're flying, and- do they have _wings?_  They're moving so fast all Cloud can clearly see are the still frames of their clashes, and the mesmerising blurs and sounds in between. Another sound comes to: something grinding against something else, and it soon becomes clear that that is _entire chunks of buildings_  being sliced to pieces and sliding down towards the ground. Cloud starts sprinting, trying to avoid the falling debris, but- it hits him, head on, and the last thing he hears is someone calling his name.


	33. Unknown

It's a different ceiling. This one is white, and there are curtains on either side of him. He blinks, slowly, a small smile on his face. He giggles. There's a shuffle, and one of the curtains retracts, revealing a woman dressed in white. Cloud beams at her. She's holding a tablet in her hand, scribbling something. "Mr. Strife?"

"Yep! That's me!" Cloud's voice sounds off to himself, somehow, but he dismisses the thought. He sits up, and starts looking the the bedsheets. He wonders what the thread count is, and why is it quite so... scratchy. Now the sides of the bed catch his eyes- there are rails. Like- "for kids?"

"I'm sorry?" The woman is not on his side anymore, but in front, setting something on whatever is clipped on the front side of the bed.

"Um. Kids. Like, what do you do- wait, no. Why does the General like... churches. Yeah. That's the word. Oh wait, no, too. It's funny. Ruins. Lots, like- oh, time? What's the time?"

"7:22 AM, sunday."

"Sundays are funny. I dunno- but what do pickles have to do with... with sundaes?" He traces a shape in the air. It's a good rendition of a pickle, in Cloud's opinion.

"It's sunday morning, Mr. Strife."

"Sunday... sunday. Nope! My schedule is free. Yeah. Sundays free. That's good. No, I had a run. I missed the run, right?"

"You missed the morning sunday run, yes."

"Oh. Good, thanks. Well, bad, bad. But-" Cloud's world grows fuzzy. He lies back down. "S'fuzzy. Funny shapes, like there, y'know? Funny, green shapes." He tries catching a few, but nothing sticks. "Can't- no... stick." The edges of his vision grow dark.

* * *

 

If Cloud is to describe the sensation in his head, it would be something akin to a Midgar Zolom happily chewing on it, combined with needles being jammed up his eyeballs. The only sound he's capable of is a groan, and the only movement small shifts, mostly aimed at covering his face. Slowly, very slowly, the blinding headache abates ever so slightly.

He lies there, the pain now manageable, but any attempt at further engagement with the world, like, say, opening his eyes, escalate it back to unbearable agony. He waits some longer, and again, the pain is fading, until one of his attempts at looking finally succeeds. Cloud mentally cheers and takes stock of his surroundings.

Curtains. Hmm. Bed. Everything's white. Hospital. Why is he in a hospital? Oh, right. Cloud locates the bed's controls and sits himself up. He hears a shuffle, and the curtain draws back, slowly, and a helmeted head peeks in. "Cloud?"

"Kunsel?"

Kunsel's words are mercifully soft and quiet. i"I volunteered to watch over you today."

"Oh."

"You should be discharged in about an hour or so."

"Ok."

Kunsel sighs, and sits at the edge of the bed. "When you were- out of it, you mentioned a church. There is one in Midgar, actually, and maybe- I don't think it means anything, but we could go check it out. If you'd like to."

"Mhm."

"I could get you painkillers."

"It's fine, thanks."

Kunsel's clearly skeptical, but lets it go. "Alright. I'll get your things, so we can be out faster, ok?"

"Yeah. Kay."

* * *

 

Movement is... ackward. His legs don't feel like his legs, his arms don't feel like his arms, and there's an odd weightlessness to everything, making even the simplest tasks a chore. His head, while no longer pounding, feels instead like he has a cold, and he's unable to focus on anything for too long. Kunsel's reassuring hand is there every time he stumbles, and even picks his keycard up at the front desk as he struggles to make his hands do what he wants them to.

They walk, slowly, to the train station, and as the train arrives, Kunsel steers Cloud to the front. They sit in a mostly empty compartment in comfortable silence. It takes until the ID scan for Cloud to realise something. "I'm not- Kunsel, I'm not sick."

"Huh?"

"I'm- I get motion sick. I'm not- I'm not feeling it "

"It could be any of the meds you were on."

"Oh. Hey, but maybe- can mako cure motion sickness?"

"Everyone reacts differently, so it's hard to say- but there aren't any recorded cases yet. Granted, most SOLDIERs never had motion sickness, but it seems unlikely."

"Oh. So I'll still have it later."

"Probably."

"Kay."

They sit in silence again. The train soon screeches to a halt, and they move out. They're only a few steps outside the station when Cloud's heart rate quickens. He stares at the buildings, and further out at the slums. Kunsel stops next to Cloud. What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing. You're shaking."

Cloud feels a faint pressure on his throat. "I- it's nothing."

Kunsel looks around, then leads Cloud back into the station, and towards a more secluded part. "Cloud. Hey, Cloud. Kunsel to Cloud."

"I'm here. I'm here, ok? It's-"

"If you say it's nothing one more time, I'm calling Reno. What did you see?"

"It's-I had a flashback. Keryl- it was Keryl." Cloud's vision blurs, and he staggers.

Kunsel maneuvers Cloud onto a bench. "We're going back."

"I'm fine! I want to see the church." Cloud tries to get up, but Kunsel holds him down.

"We're going back, because I'm not carrying you all the way back if you faint."

Cloud slumps. "Fine."

"Ok, we'll wait for the next train. We'll come back another time, alright?"

"Yeah."

* * *

 

Cloud is bored. Bored and hungry, because anything he tries to eat makes him immediately nauseous. Kunsel suggested some strategy game, but Cloud can scarcely focus enough to move past the first level. They settle on sticking it out in the library, Kunsel sitting on a beanbag, typing something on his laptop, and Cloud, sprawled out on a nearby sofa, attempting to read.

His PHS beeps. Fishing it out is like playing whack-a-mole, and soon it slips out of Cloud's hands and onto the floor. He winces. Kunsel sets aside his laptop, gets up, and picks up the PHS. "Nice model."

"The screen- it's cracked?"

Kunsel looks it over. "Nope, looks good. Do you want me to read the message?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"No problem. Hmm. There. 'Hi! This is Jessica from the Urban Dev dep. I'm sending over the details of the internship. You can come tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Text if that's ok.'"

"Details?"

"There's an attachment. 'Terms and Conditions.' I'll look that over, if you don't mind."

"Sure."


	34. 07:12, Monday

After a long night of sleep, Cloud feels great. So great, in fact, that in today's morning run he's not lagging behind, but instead keeping pace alongside the main group. Ignoring everyone's surprised looks, he picks a spot right next to Pennet and trots along comfortably. They soon finish with what is most likely Cloud's personal best, the fact of which the sergeant overseeing them has clearly decided to ignore, as he doesn't so much as glance at Cloud as they leave.

They march to the showers. Cloud eyes the communal bathrooms, already missing Reno's large, _private_ one. The water, as usual, is near freezing, and Cloud's mind wanders to the unlimited hot water. Cloud dries off quickly. The main group is now migrating towards another place Cloud doesn't want to go to, and after a few hallways he breaks off from them, except-

"Cloud?" It's Pennet. Cloud turns around, and there's some measure of hesistation on Pennet's face, but the stalwart cadet plows on. "Are you coming for breakfast?"

Cloid weights the decision. The juicy, crunchy breakfast several floors up, or the inedible mush- the decision seems easy, but on the other hand, it's Pennet. He makes his choice. "Yeah, I'm going. Sorry. I had something to do, I'll do it later." Cloud turns around and joins the other cadet.

"Oh. Ok, I- I didn't want to bother you."

"It's ok."

As they walk, Pennet glances at Cloud every so often, and seems on the verge of asking something every time, but remains silent. Soon, they're in the one place Cloud won't miss, a place where there only exists glop and mystery meat. Heads turn as they enter, something Cloud now knows to ignore. They grab trays and stand in line. Cloud picks a small salad and makes a mental note to eat his actual breakfast later. Pennet appears to gain some courage between filling his tray with unknown substances, and speaks up. "You're not hungry, huh?"

"I'll eat later." They sit at the only unoccupied small table. It's wobbly. Cloud folds his single napkin and stuffs it under one of the legs. He tugs at it, and it's stable.

Pennet looks at Cloud uneasily. "So... I heard you have a lot of... um, SOLDIER friends."

"I think every cadet knows a few SOLDIERs."

"Um. Yes, but it's... that- that you're- well, friendswithbenefits." Pennet's face flushes.

"Frie- what? Pen, I don't get what you're trying to say."

Pennet inhales. "Friends- that you have boyfriends. And they help you out." He exhales.

It's a good thing Cloud's mouth is empty. "Wha- I don't have boyfriends! I don't even _do_  dating!" He hears the entire room shift at the proclamation.

"Yeah, but- but what about that redhead Turk? He- I mean, you said you live with him now- after Keryl-"

"We only share dorms. That's it. I barely see him, and trust me, even that's too much."

"So, you guys aren't- involved, or anything." Pennet is somehow eating the things on his plate.

"No. Bleh." Cloud stares at his own tray in dismay.

"So... right. Hey, what about... Keryl? Is he ok? They didn't tell us anything."

Cloud scans the room, and it seems like half the cadets are leaning in, listening. "I'll tell you elswhere."

Pennet finishes eating, they set aside their trays and Cloud leads them with a brisk pace to the elevator, scans his keycard and chooses the nearest foor the tails behind him shouldn't have access to. They emerge, thankfully, to an empty corridor. Pennet is glancing at everything, including Cloud's keycard.

Cloud take a breath. "Keryl is-" Dead. He's dead. Cloud swallows. "-he- he's dead."

Pennet's red face pales. "Oh. Shiva. What- what happened?"

"The target- the target was going our way and Keryl got shot. I don't know what happened later, I passed out."

"I- shiva."

Cloud plows on. "And Yosef is in a coma. They don't know if he'll wake up."

"So- so that's why you weren't there last week- are you ok? Did they- you said you passed out? Did you get shot, too?"

Cloud winces. "Yeah. I don't really want to talk about it."

"Sorry."

"It's ok."

"So- I saved some notes for you, if you'd like."

"Thanks a lot, but, I, uh, have an internship."

"Internship?"

"Yeah, it's with Urban Development. Really boring things, mostly paperwork. I'm not going to be there for some classes."

Pennet looks down. "How are you-" He stops.

"Huh?"

"I'm- trying to prepare for the exams, and- Jamean's nice and all, but- you just take it all in stride, Cloud. Something horrible happens, and you just- I don't know, you have so many friends. I-" He sighs.

"Pen- what happened?"

"Nothing. Nothing major, well, except when you- the uniform thing, but- I don't think this is for me."

"Pen? I can tell something's wrong."

"Fine." Pennet looks Cloud in the eyes. "I'm quitting."

"You- but the service agreement-"

"I can get an exemption."

"But you'll have to go to the Infantry."

"No." Pennet sighs. "In exchange for being let go, I would agree to be an informant for the remainder of my term."

"Pen-"

"Not everyone can just get an internship like you, Cloud."

"This isn't a good idea."

"I know. But I don't have a choice."

"Pen-"

"I've made up my mind. Cloud, I have to go for class."

"Wait." An idea worms its way into Cloud's brain. "Pen- could you wait a little longer?"

"I'm not staying."

"No. No, I'm going to ask all those high ranking corporate mouth breathers if they can't do something."

"What?"

"Directors. They have it in for me. Long story. But there's a chance someone will listen. If not, I'll ask Reno, and if he refuses, I'll dye all his shirts pink. Wait, no, he'd probably take that as some sort of proposal." Cloud pauses, then grins. "No, I'll throw out his coffee."

8:58

"Mr. Strife, right?" Some random office worker smiles and greets him. "I'll show you around. My section deals with planning. You'll be working with Jessica over there- she's in charge of the archives." The continue the tour. "Coffee over there, printers here, there's another set down the hall- just log a job if you need it- bathrooms, a bunch of offices, um, that's it. We're not a big deparment."

Cloud nods to all of it. The man leads him to a coworker, gives him a thumbs up, and leaves to his own work.

The woman smiles at Cloud. "I'm Jessica. You're Cloud, right? Can I call you Cloud?"

"Yes, and yes ma'am."

"Come on, it's Jessica. Ok, what we're doing now is digitilizing some of our existing archives. What I'll need you to do is use this bad boy over here-" She taps a complicated looking printer-like contraption. "-to scan the stacks of paperwork we'll be getting from there-" she uses her thumb to point at a nearby door. "-and then we'll have to order it all on the system. Ok so far?"

"Yes, ma- yeah. Is that all I'll be doing?"

"Oh, heavens, no. This should only take a few days. Then you can help Jerry with his cables. He's doing some network testing, said he needs volunteers. But I got you first- I though you'd like to get the most boring things out of the way. Any other questions?"

"Yes, actually, I just wanted to ask if I could pass on a message to Ditector Tuesti?"

"Oh. Ok, but, is everything ok here? I mean, I went over this pretty fast, but... I'd appreciate if you, well, told me what's wrong."

"Oh, no, no. It's totally unrelated."

"Ok. Well, the messaging address for his office should be under the staff section of the website."

"Will he read it?"

"Well, everything is automatically filtered, so if you're whitelisted, probably."

"Thanks. So, about those papers..." Cloud trails off.

Jessica brightens. "Yeah. Alright, follow me-" The woman proceeds to show him the stacks upon stacks of boxes in the room, explain the organisation system, take one, run one folder from it on what Cloud now knows is a two sided scanner, and then file it under the appropriate header. Then she sets Cloud to do it, helping and watching out.

It's a repetitive and boring job, and Cloud feels his mind drift, and before long, they're on the third box. Cloud opens up the folder, and notices something- off. He takes another one out, compares the two and-

"Something wrong?" Jessica walks out of the room with another box.

"Yeah. These aren't- it's a different font."

"Oh yeah, that was before standarization. Or maybe someone accidentally deleted the font. Hard to say. Sharp eyes, though, keep it up."

Cloud stares for a second longer at the two, shakes his head, and continues the job. Soon, it's time for lunch. En route to the cafeteria, Cloud starts typing on his PHS.

'Kunsel. Do you have any contact to dir. Tuesti, dir. Rayleigh and Turk Tseng?'

'Yes. Need it now?'

'ASAP. Thanks.'

'Sec.'

He's halfway through his meal when Kunsel sends the info. Cloud starts composing.

'Director Tuesti,'

He chews thoughtfully.

'This is Cadet Cloud Strife. I have a friend- Cadet Pennet Lorimer. He-'

He taps his chin with the fork.

'-wishes to terminate his contract with the company, but is unable to do so on favorble terms due to the stipulations of the contract. I'd like to ask if there is anything that you could do to help him.'

Cloud looks it over.

'Sincerely,  
Cadet Cloud Strife'

Send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. Penny now has a name :).
> 
> Thanks for putting up with all the typos. Due to time constraints, this is typed up on an app.


	35. 18:00, Monday

'Kunsel, where is that church you mentioned? Sorry to bother and thanks.'

'Np. Below plate, Sector 5. Can't go now, busy. Can send map.'

'Ok thanks for everything.'

'Yw. Sure you want to go alone?"

'It's ok.'

'Enjoy.'

Cloud slips the PHS back into his pocket. He shifts through his clothes, frowning. Choosing an outfit for this venture proves difficult with his meagre wardrobe, and Cloud is tempted to just march out in uniform, regardless of the unfavorable reactions of the residents below plate. He eventually picks out a plain t-shirt and jeans, and a pair of still functioning sneakers.

On the way down to the lobby, Kunsel sends the coordinates, Cloud thanks him again, and then attempts to parse a route from the train station, because his PHS can't seem to handle its usual task of finding a way. In fact, whenever he selects the coordinates, the program simply doesn't respond.

The elevator opens and he steps out and stands to the side. He picks a different set of coordinates, close by, and suddenly the PHS works again, albeit throwing up a warning that the areas below plate are ever changing and that the map may not be current.

Deciding to ignore this quirk, just like the whole array of other inconsistencies in his life that he shoves away from conscious thought in order to preseve his already fragile sanity, Cloud moves on to exit the building and make his way to the train station. He waits at the front for the Sector 5 train, enters, and sits down in the empty employee carrige. The ride is bumpy, but Cloud feels only mildly queasy, a considerable step up from nearly throwing up at the slightest provocation.

The station below plate is even grimier than the one in sector 6, and Cloud catches a few whiffs of something that upsets his stomach far more than the train ever did. He consults the map, and steps out to face the twisting array of dirt streets. The ever present dim lighting casts a swathe of shadows over the cobbled together landscape. His choice of clothes works well, albeit the PHS seems to earn a few looks. He keeps his hand on one pocket, also making sure his keycard is still there.

He reaches a street with some seedy establishments, and Cloud gets catcalled more than once. He ignores that, keeping his eyes forward, striding determinedlly forward even when he's not entirely sure of the direction. He reaches a dead end- there's a makeshift tent and a pile of debris where the road should be. He stops, hlances around, and swiftly turns around.

"Hey, you lost?" It's a plump teen with a red bandana on his head.

Cloud eyes the stranger. "Not really."

"You haven't been here a while- that was filled in two weeks ago."

"Yeah."

"So were are you going? I know a few shortcuts."

"The church."

"The flowers, right?'

"Yeah, that."

"It must really be someone special."

"Mhm."

"Come on, I'll show you the way. I'm Wedge, by the way."

"Cloud."

"Cool. Follow me, ok?"

Cloud cautiously walks behind the teen, surveying his surroundings.

"So, you live around here?"

"Sector 6. You?" They return to what Cloud identifies as a main road and the duck into another alleyway.

"About twenty minutes from here. I even have a room!"

"Nice." He resists the urge to check the map on his PHS.

"Yeah, and we even got a TV from above plate- well, as long as there's power, heh." Wedge scratches the back of his head. "Gotta leave the generator to the fridge. Can't tell you how many times I pedaled just to get an extra episode in. The kids love it, too."

"That's... nice of you."

"Thank you!" Wedge points at something in the distance. Cloud can just about make out the tip of a tower. "It's right there. Just go straight, turn right, second left, and you'll be there." He beams at Cloud, then frowns. "Wait, how are you going to get back? I need to go, but I can't guide you back."

"I'll manage."

"You sure?"

"I'll ask if I can't."

"Be careful. Some people aren't very nice."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

"You're welcome! Ok, see you around!" The plump teen somehow fits into a narrow alley and disappears in seconds.

Cloud faces the direction Wedge was pointing at, and moves on. Determining what right and second left mean proves challenging, but he decides to go by how well tread the path seems to be. It pays off when soon enough, he can see a part of the church down the road. It looks- it looks exactly like his vision, but- no. No, Cloud can see more of it is intact, and some of the ruined sections are covered with tarps. There is a ladder and several bags of construction materials lying outside. Near the entrance, an old woman is sitting in front of a cart full of flowers. An nearby sign reads:

1 flower - 1 gil  
Every gil goes to rebuild  
the Holy Church of the  
Goddess                           
Bless you

Cloud walks up to her. "Ma'am, how do the flowers grow here? I though Midgar- I though nothing grew here."

The woman smiles. "The flowers are a gift from the goddess."

"The... goddess?"

"Yes. Minerva. The goddess of our world. They grow inside her church, tended to by her servant."

"Can- can I go inside?"

"Of course."

Cloud enters through the heavy wooden doors. They move easily, and he steps inside. The first thing that strikes Cloud is how clean it is. The floor is swept, the stained glass windows cleaned, and the rows of pews neatly arranged. There are a handful of support collumns here and there. A few people are sitting up front in silence. Cloud quietly dusts his shoes off on the provided carpet, and walks forward. He chooses a seat a little behind the group, and looks at the flowerbed in front of the altar. It's beautiful, and somehow a light is shining upon it, even if all that Cloud sees above is a ceiling with no visible light source.

He sits there for a while. Aside from the mysterious light, nothing happens. It's getting late, so Cloud stands up, shuffles out of the pew, and leaves. He meanders through back to the station, thinking back to the flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bit of writer's block.
> 
> On another note, I recently saw a story tag called 'random naked Reno.' I'm not sure whether to be ashamed or proud this story technically features a random almost naked Reno a few chapters back.


	36. 10:20, Thursday

True to word, Cloud's work as an intern is calm and relaxing. There's a lot to do with the scanning, and he has a lot of time to think- but it's thursday again. It's thursday, and Cloud didn't get any sort of response yet. It's thursday, and the single class Cloud was dreading is here.

The first thing he notices upon arriving at the holo room is that there are distinctly fewer people than two weeks ago.

"So, the runt's back?" Cloud feels everyone's eyes on him. "Good. Last week was just a warm up- I have something special for you ladies today."

A tremor runs through the group.

"Scenario 43, variant B." Cloud breathes a minute sigh of relief. He did read that, even if he can't quite recall the specifics. "I hope you prepared yourselves with all of the relevant case files. Now, suit up." There's something awfully gleeful in Otter's voice.

Everyone reaches for some sort of headsets and a complicated looking harness. In what seems like seconds everyone is all geared up, and Cloud is still fumbling with the straps. They wait for him, and he reddens at the attention. He's done, and not a second later he sees the screen in front of his face say initializing. Cloud stumbles back as the world changes in front of him into a vast, Midgar-like cityscape. He reaches out to touch a handrail- it's there, it's textured, but there's no temperature. He pulls back.

"If you're done admiring the scenery, I suggest you all listen. As I'm sure you're read, your job will be to enter that building over there-" The building looks like an off model version of the ShinRa HQ. "-and retireve a data chip from the fiftieth floor. You can gather information in whichever way you like, but if security catches you, you get booted out and they know your face, so have fun. You can group up however you want, but success will be assesed individually."

The SOLDIERs all form up in groups. Cloud is just about to join when he notices the group just march towards the building- something Cloud remembers the instructions specifically advise against. He ducks instead to a side street to avoid being seen with them. He meanders a little, trying to remember more details from the textbook, before he's faced with a smiling, nondescript, middle aged man. "Appreciating the scenery, Mister? It's real nice, our town, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Cloud absently mutters. "Yeah, it is."

"You look like you could use some work there, Mister, huh?"

Cloud looks up. "I'm employed already."

"Oh, what do you do, Mister, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I..." Cloud eyes the simulated person. "I do archive stuff."

"Ooh, archive. Sound serious. Well, I won't bother you any longer, Mister."

"Yeah, thanks."

"Have a great day, Mister." The man is about to leave when he turns back to Cloud. "Hey- my friend in Helicon said they just got a new archivist. That you? You should hurry, orientation is starting soon."

The company! "Yes, oh, of course. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Cloud nearly runs back to the building, but he stops before the entrance, glancing at his clothes. He curses under his breath- but then he stops. The wierd man didn't notice, so- maybe the simulation doesn't take clothing into account. Cloud crosses his fingers and steps inside. He straightens and walks up to the reception. "I'm the new archivist, where do I go?"

The man on the other side eyes him. "Oh really? Then please describe how you would go about digitilizing a paper archive? "

Cloud fights not to let his relief show, and breifly describes what he'd been doing the past few days. The man smiles and nods. "Yep. Welcome aboard. Chris, right? Yeah, see, just wanted to check, there were several wierdos trying to get in today and they pretended to be new employees. Security dealt with that. Ok, let's get you a pass card and I'll show you around."

Cloud gets a rather extended tour of the building, and he's ultimately left with a small team on the 46th floor, holding a brand new card with his photo.

Chris Thornpike  
Junior Archivist

There's a convenient lanyard to hang it around his neck, too. Cloud soon get directed to help organise some papers and carry around a few boxes. After a while he ducks out, ostensibly to go to the bathroom. He makes his way to the elevators. He enters one, and another person enters with him. Cloud hesitates over the buttons.

"Need any help?"

Cloud tries to think of an excuse, but decides to ask outright. "Yeah, I need to check something out on the fiftieth?"

"Why would you-" The man glances at Cloud's plaquard. "Oh, archivist. Right. Sorry. Heh, they send the rookies out for the worst jobs, eh?"

Cloud nods. "Oh, yeah. We get the worst."

The man inputs some combination on the buttons. "There. It'll go up. Oh, yes, I know the feeling. I used to be a junior employee- I swear that was a busywork magnet like no other."

"So... when does it end?"

"Ha ha. Oh, about- a few months in. Don't worry, it's all good natured."

"Thanks for the advice."

The elevator foors open. Floor 49. The man gets off. "You're welcome. Enjoy." The doors close, and Cloud is once again left alone.

Floor 50 is one giant archive. Cloud resists groaning. Soon however, he notices a door to the side. He walks up to it. A short text on the side informs that it is, in fact, the room with the data cards. There's just one problem- Cloud doesn't know the pass code. He turns back, and pretends to be looking for some specific files. There's a cat in the corner that looks just like the one he saw in the Urban Development director's office. It's not moving, but Cloud could swear the eyes are tracking him.

He ignores it, scouring the shelves instead, waiting for some inspiration. He looks at the cat again, and freezes. The cat is pointing at something. It's- it's some sort of terminal, and Cloud realises with alarm that's it's smoking.

No, it's _on fire._

Seconds later, an alarm sounds. Cloud realises it's for a gas suppression system, and he frantically looks around for an evacuation route- there! He sprints towards the signs, and just as he pushes down on the handle he hears the valves open. He stands, panting, on the staircase. The alarm is blaring now, and Cloud shakes his head and makes his way down. A few floors later, more employees start joining him.

"Chris. Chris! Hey, Chris!" Just realising someone is shouting after him, Cloud tries to locate the speaker in the commotion. It's one of the archive workers. "Stay close, Chris. We need to keep together- we're going to the slides. They're doing a head count outside."

"Yeah, uh, ok." Another swarm of people joins. "What... uh, what's happening?"

"Fire."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, we have good supression systems."

"Ok." They reach some sort of crowd, and past them Cloud can see several people- jumping into holes?

"Escape chutes. Don't worry, just hop in and you'll be fine."

They wait for their turn, and Cloud is getting more and more sweaty the closer he is. He waits for the go ahead signal of the person directing the timing, and soon, it's there. He swallows and gets inside the chute. He closes his eyes, fists clenched, teeth grinding. He's sliding straight down towards the ground, fabric sliding against him, but- it's not that fast. Or maybe it's a long way down. Cloud opens his eyes. It's not so terrifying.

Right until Cloud is unceremoniously dropped out, and in moments he's sprawled out on the pavement, being helped up by someone. He thanks the person, and, seeing no way to avoid joining the crowd, dejectedly walks towards them.

One of the employees approaches him, but- Cloud realises it's one of the SOLDIERs.

"You're Cloud, right? I'm Luxiere."

"You weren't here two weeks ago."

"Yeah, I'm here instead of Zack. He got sent off to the front lines, I get to enjoy class again. I'm almost jealous.. Just wanted to say thanks- the commotion you caused let us get the data- we took an extra chip for you."

Cloud looks at it. "Uh, thanks. Wow. I didn't- that's really nice. Luxiere? Uh, Zack and Kunsel mentioned you. Yeah. You visit the Cuchulain?"

"Yep. Dicey during the war, but the Turks cleared me so I'm good. Oh, I mean it when I'd say without you we wouldn't have made it. Security was descending on us like crazy. I made it through, but only because of the alarm."

"Yeah. Uh. You're welcome."

"Hey, we could pair up next week, what do you say? You're pretty good at this, and there are supposed to be partner exercises. I think."

"Yeah, sure."

"Awesome. So- why are you here?"

"Huh?"

"I mean... you're going to be squad leader? Or are you gunning for a promotion? Or wait- are you one of those undercover firsts?"

"Um, no?"

"So what is it?"

"Didn't Zack tell you? I'm a cadet and I got here by... I think it was accident. Maybe."

"He did mention a 'Cloud,' but Zack... Zack's pretty gullible, actually. You've got bright, blue eyes like all of us, well, 'xcept the General. Pretty terrible cover story."

"Hey, it's true! And this is my _natural_ eye color!"

"Natural? Yeah right."

"It is! People do have this color!"

"They sure do. I'm just rightfully doubtful a 'lil cadet could be here. Granted, you're small-"

_"I just haven't hit my growth spurt yet!"_

"-but you could be good with materia."

"Actually, I'm terrible with materia."

"I'm sure you're better than Zack."

"Zack- but Zack can use materia fine."

"Oh, now. He used to be just awful. So what other proof do you have to offer, hmm?"

"I'll show you when we leave this- this mission."

"I'll hold you to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was not fun to write. After several edits I admit I just gave up. G'night, everyone.


	37. 10:02, Saturday

As Cloud trudges towards a shower, he checks his PHS. There's still no response from anyone concerning Pennet, and Cloud is annoyed. Pennet, as far as Cloud can tell, is avoiding Cloud, always muttering some flimsy excuse. Kunsel and Luxiere are busy, Cloud doesn't feel like talking with any of the other cadets, and even Reno is conspicuously absent- having no theoretical classes to study for freed up a significant amount of time Cloud isn't quite sure what to do with.

He decides to explore the city. Having no particular aim, he steps out of HQ and follows the route to the train station. He boards the first train that comes in- a few people stare at him oddly as he enters the first compartment, but no one comments. Cloud picks an empty seat and braces for the jostling. The train rumbles and lurches forward.

"This is a No. 1 Reactor bound train. Please make sure you have your ID cards ready for the scan." Cloud groans under his breath- of course, out of all the possible destinations, he had to pick a reactor. He wonder if he's even allowed to go- but the ID scan passes them with no pause, and Cloud breathes a sigh of relief.

It's a good half an hour of a ride, so even if he boards the next train back it's still an hour in total. Maybe Cloud could walk around the reactor- but he's probably bother the workers. He taps around mindlessly on his PHS. They arrive, breaks screeching, and the handful of workers file out with Cloud at the end. He steps down onto the plaform. The green haze of Midgar is even thicker here, so much so that Cloud can barely see the top of the enormous reactor- rendered visible only by the multiple harsh lights sequestered around the area.

The workers scan in and enter the reactor grounds. He glances at the train, shrugs, and follows suit. He places his keycard on the reader, and, to his surprise, the doors open. He's just making a step forward when another batch of workers hurries in through the open passage. He sidesteps and makes a brief apology as the flustered people rush in with a whole load of equipment.

One of them is a large, burly man, and there's something familiar about him- but the group soon disappears behind a set of pillars, and Cloud shakes his head and moves on, now careful to avoid possible footpaths. He meanders on the grounds, and encounters a patrol that checks his keycard again- aside from an odd look and a short question about his business here, to which Cloud shrugs and anwsers honestly- they leave him alone.

There's nothing to do, and Cloud returns back to the entryway.

_**Shrieeeeek.** _

What the- his PHS! Cloud pulls it out.

'RED ALERT: AVALANCHE reactor 1 core breach. HELP ASAP BOMB patrol 17-Y5.'

Not a second later alarms start blaring, with red lights flashing to and fro. Cloud sees a pair of infantrymen running into the reactor- he sprints after them, cursing his current choice of uniform, and darts inside. They're several steps down on the walkway, but he catches up to them. "You have extra weapons?"

The men startle and raise their weapons at him, before seeming to recognise his face. One of them steps up and salutes. "Sir!"

"Weapons?"

"I can't hear you, sir!"

"Wha- do you have any weapon I could borrow!?"

"Rifle, handgun or knife, sir!?"

"...Handgun!"

The man nods, unclips something from his belt and hands it to Cloud. The two then stand there, looking at him for guidance.

At this point, Cloud realises he has no idea what he's doing. "Where's the core!?"

One of them points towards a set of ladders.

"Ok, I'll take point! Cover me!" He hurries towards where the infantryman pointed, glancing to make sure the two are following.

They descend, walks a few steps, and something starts shooting at them. Cloud ducks behind a pillar, the two following close after him. He leans out, and sees large machines prowling around, one of which has its sights set on them. "What are those!?" Bodies of several workers lie about.

"Director Scarlet's machines, sir! They-" The man ducks as one of the robots throws a bent piece of pipe at them, followed by a wide volley of shots. "-always malfunction!"

"Can we go around!?"

The man points towards a hatch a distance away, near one of the robots. Cloud curses. "Can we distract it!?"

"Sir!?"

Cloud crouches down, looking for something to throw. The bent pipe- he darts out and throws it in the general direction of the robot. Moments later, he's pelleted with a round of- more pipes? "Do they always break things? Ok, you throw the pipes, I'll sprint past it and go!"

"Alone, sir!?"

"Are there more of them down!?"

"There shouldn't be!"

"Then retreat after I get down!"

"Yes sir!"

"Now!" The execute the plan, and as he's sprinting forward Cloud sees the machine focus on the pipes- he makes it, pries the hatch open and jumps down. He's on a walkway, and in front of him are a vast series of walkways and ladders. He navigates down as far as he can, to yet another floor. He descends, and this time the area is charred black, with twisted and molten metal abound. Mako is leaking from fractured pipes, and a hazy green steam fills the air. Several walkways are collapsed, and this time there are what seems to be pieces of bodies on the walls. He carefully clambers down.

Under one of the collapsed walkways is a mop of familiar bright red hair. He clambers up to get to it. "Reno!"

For the briefest second, Cloud thinks he's too late. Then Reno yells back. "Cloud!? Wha- ouch! _Fuck._  Wait-"

Cloud moves faster. He grabs onto the walkway and pulls. He groans, and the metals starts bending- "Cloud! Don't! I'm- it's got me pinned!"

He stops trying.

"Listen! I need you to get to the core! There's a bomb! You need to shut down the reactor! Call me-" Reno clutches his side and winces. "-I'll walk you through!"

"But-"

"Go, or we'll all fucking die!"

"Which way!?"

"Oh for fucks- down and center! Move!"

Cloud moves. Soon enough there are signs and warnings pointing there, along with more unconscious or dead workers. He descends a few more levels. At the end, there's one walkway leading to an enormous pillar Cloud assumes is the core. There, stuck to one side, is the bomb.

His fingers are slick with sweat, his hands shaking, and and breath hitches. All around his there's the whoosh of machinery and the wail of the alarms, and beneath him a sea of green dozens of feet down. He dials Reno. "I'm there!"

"Ok, there should be a panel on the right! Open it!" Underneath there's a keypad. "The code is one! One! Six! Four! Seven! Nine! I repeat! One! One! Six! Four! Seven! Nine!"

One, one, six, four- "One, one, six, four-"

"Seven! Nine!"

Another panel opens, and there's a handle behind it.

"Pull it and run!"

He pulls it down, and the whirrs and whooshes slowly start abating, and Cloud can even see the level of mako on the bottom drop-

"Run!"

He hasilty pockets the PHS, turns and sprints back, then climbs up desperately. He ascends quickly, but he's not even halfway back to Reno when a jolt of pressure knocks Cloud off of a ladder, and as he gets up he realises his head is ringing. Moments later another explsion resounds, and the walkways around him start bending and twisting- he slips. He manages to catch a ledge in the last moment and, with strength he didn't know he had, he pulls himself up. He's now running, avoiding the broken machinery, scrambling as far away as he can before yet another explosion nearly pins him under a beam. He braces for more, but nothing happens.

It's just him, a whole lot of rubble, and the sharp wailing of the alarms. He carefuly navigates out, and tries to find a way up. Some of the metal is hot to the touch, but he grasps it step by step, and he's soon making his way up.

Then he slips. He tries to grab onto something and his hand is cut open by a sharp edge. He hits something else and nearly blacks out, then slides down again. As he's falling, the only thing he can think of is whether Reno made it out- he hits another thing, and this time he does black out, but comes to a short while later. He rolls over, groaning in pain, and he sees someone standing over him- a worker? No- "Who-"

"I saved your ass once, and this is how you thank me?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay. College has officially begun!
> 
> On another note, writer's block. Whee.


	38. 12:31, Saturday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The new academic year is in full swing! So many new, wonderous, glorious textbooks to explore! And labs.
> 
> Labs. _Sniffles. Wipes tears, tries to be strong. Breaks down again upon seeing calendar._
> 
> This one is from Pennet's POV.

"37 workers died today in a series of explosions that rocked reactor 1 in Midgar. Firefighters are working to conatin the fires, the damage is severe, but one of the workers managed to shut down the reactor just before the explosions. Our anonymous source confirmed there were bombs, and that this was most likely an attack by Wutaian insurgents. ShinRa has confirmed that power should be restored to affected areas by evening. Meanwhile-"

"What? What happened?"

"Did you hear-"

"Reactor 1 was attacked? Wait, wasn't Karim out on patrol- is he alright? How many dead? Is there a list?"

"They're still sorting out who's KIA."

"Fucking bastards! We should have wiped them off the map!"

"My mom lives in sector 1! She has no power! I mean, how-"

"Everyone in gear, I want you ready for deployment in fifteen minutes!"

"Sir, yes sir!" _March. Shuffle, shuffle. Creak. Zip. Shove._

Pennet settles the helmet on his head. _Dear Bahamut, how does anyone see in this?_ He adjusts the visor, trying to get any reasonable level of vision. _Gah. Not happening_. He gives up, shrugging on the rifle. They file out, walk a while, then form a line alongside squads of infatrymen.

"Alright, you'll be helping secure the area while cleanup deals with the mess. Don't let any civilians wander in. If you see anything that might be a threat, anything at all, _immediately_  call for backup. Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!"  _March, shuffle, shuffle._  They board transports, and he's happy to at least have a sitting spot.  _Wasn't there a train to reactor 1? Maybe it's down. How big is the damage?_  The truck lurches forward, and he feels a twinge of sympathy for the stragglers getting tossed around. Midway through, he gets up and lets someone else take the seat.

They arrive, and he reluctantly emerges from the truck. _Yay, burnt rubber, mako fumes, and a hint of burnt flesh. Why do these useless helmets not have air filters? Why?_ Cough. Cough, cough. Bleh. _Please let me not be assigned close. Please. Gods. Anyone._  Naturally, his group gets called out to march into the reactor grounds, and he's assigned a wonderful post with an enjoyable downwind draft of all manners of pleasant smells. _Ok, resist urge to throw up. Must resist._  "Ugh."

"You ok?" It's his trusty temporary partner, infantryman number something, that he might have seen once before. Pennet admires how composed the other is.

"Thanks- I'll be fine." He gets another puff of that fresh Midgar air. "Actually-" hurgh. He staggers a few paces to the side, avoiding the worst of it. "-just a sec."

"Cadets rarely leave HQ, right?"

"Yeah?"

"You get used to this pretty soon on patrols."

 _Plus one for trying to avoid infantry duty._ "Oh. But- shouldn't you have some protective gear?"

"It's within official exposure limits. Besides, we're grunts. No one really cares."

"Oh." It's also cold. Wet, sticky and cold. _Uniforms designed by office workers, for office workers._  "Um. Ugh." _I think I can taste the ash. Mmm. Crunchy grit._

The other shrugs. "We'll probably be standing here a while. I'm Yeji. Fourth year on contract."

"Pennet. Um, first year, cadet." _Is this the right time to mention these are your last weeks and you'd literally rather be anywhere else?_

"Nice. So... do you know anything about what happened here? I mean, besides the news?"

"Not really."

"I don't think it was Wutai at all."

 _Conspiracy theorist?_  "Who else could it be?"

"I think it ShinRa did it as a false flag operation."

"Wait, what?"

"The war with Wutai lost ShinRa a lot of popularity- I mean, it's obvious they would do this do drum up good publicity. Get everyone focused on the _enemy,_  and away from whatever domestic shit we've got."

"Wait, you _work_  for ShinRa."

"And?"

"You work for the company that-" _allegedly_  "-did this?" Pennet gestures to the smoking ruin.

"Right."

"O kay... I mean, this is interesting, but, I don't thing I'm... on the same page."

"Oh. Yeah, it's ok, I get it. You don't want to rock the boat. Anyways, I'm from Junon. ShinRa destroyed the fishing industry, so the only jobs around were military."

"So... I guess you're a fish out of water?"

"Definitely." _That was supposed to be a lame pun._  "Where are you from?"

"Mideel."

"That's..."

"Island down south."

"So... ShinRa fished you out." Wink.

"Uh, yeah?" A fresh crew of workers exit the reactor, carrying long, black bags. _Whee._ Along with a fresh puff of that air. _Ugh._

"So we're in the same boat! Ha!"

"I guess." _Nod. Don't make eye contact._

"Sooo, anything interesting happen in your life? "

"Hmm." _Yeah, there's that one friend, Cloud, with all sorts of wierd shit around him._  "Not really."

"Bummer. My life is mostly this." Yeji gestures around. "Endless staring at walls. Shooting practice every once in a while. The occasional monster or thug. Not exactly like the recruitment posters, eh?"

"Yeah."

"And that's exactly why I think-" A Turk. There's a Turk walking right towards them. Right next to the Turk is the General. _Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck._ Pennet nudges the infantryman, and they both salute stiffly. _Oh fuck- fuck, wait the rumors were true!? Dear Ifrit, the General has a braid. So- is that Tseng? Oh Shiva, are they a pair? Wait, no, bad thoughs, bad thoughts!_ The Turk seems to stare right at Pennet, and he feels a bead of sweat forming on his brow. _He's staring at me with his dark, soulless eyes. And doesn't the guy look wutaian? Kinda? Is that why we're at war with Wutai? Because they're demons? Or is that just a Turk thing?_

"At ease." It takes well over a second for Pennet to register the General said something, and a further second for his arms and legs to obey. "You are dismissed." The General is wrinkling his nose. "You may return to base, or whichever was your assigned transport."

"Yes sir!" He still stands there, dumbly, watching as the two move on towards the reactor. This time the infantryman nudges him.

"Pennet?"

"Uuh?" _Commence brain reset._

"Let's go."

"Uhuh."

"You know, I think this counts as the most interesting encounter I've had since... hmm, a few months ago."

"Oh. Oh, yeah." _Reset complete!_ "Yeah. Do you know where our transport is?"

"Yep. Follow me."


	39. 08:01, Monday

Over a week passed. Cloud stares at the city, and imagines the green haze is just a little less dense. It's hard to believe that yesterday he was down there, fifty floors and a plate lower, staring upwards at the foundations of every building he's now looking at.

_"The reactors- they're killing us. ShinRa will never stop on it's own- we have to do this."_

He shakes his head, turns around, and heads to the elevators. His chest is still stiff. He'll have scars, even after the best ShinRa has to offer. Too long after it happened, they said.

_"Not a lot of potions down here, Cloud."_

The cafeteria is bustling with activity, and he nods to the few faces he recognises. He's not hungry, not really, and he shuffles his food from side to side, nibbling a few corners here and there.

_The house was small and barely holding together- and a big chunk was taken up by the kitchen. Jessie cooked a lot- many kids came for a meal every day, and they were thin, thinner even than scrawny Cloud._

No, he's not hungry at all, and the smell of food is slowly making him nauseous. He sets aside the tray and makes his way towards the Urban Development offices.

...........

"And that's the last of it!" Jessica wipes her brow with an exaggerated motion, eyeing the last box with a resigned sort of hatred and dread. "Where were you last week? I swear, the paperwork just kept- multiplying. The boxes had babies. Triplets. Quadruplets..."

"Uh." Cloud feeds a stack into the scanner. "Busy." He watches the pages slide in, one by one.

"You're not going to intern somewhere else, are you?"

"No, no."

"Good. Right. Now that we're done here, you can go help Jerry. He's been asking all week for you. He's just lazy, the sloth. In case it's not obvious, he's the crumb covered, eternally chip eating but somehow still thin guy in the room across the hall."

"Thanks." He steps out of the office, greets the random office worker wandering about, and ducks into the next room. There's three desks, one of which is occupied by someone staring intensly at three monitors, clicking something, and, sure enough, eating potato chips with the other hand. "Uh, hi?"

"Mmh?" The man doesn't look up. Crunch.

"I'm Cloud. I was supposed to help here?"

"Oh." The man glances at him. "Do you have any experience in IT at all?"

"Uh- no?"

"Are you good at following instructions and matching colors?"

"Yeah?"

"We'll see." The man leans back, now looking intently at Cloud. "Jump."

Cloud hesistates, then his eyes widen. "How high?"

"Not at all." Jerry rolls closer, reaches for something in a cabinet under his desk. "This was just a test. There's hope for you yet." He pulls out a mouse. "This is a mouse. What I want you to do is to go to room 39BA, and replace the mouse at station nine. Bring the old one back here. There should be no one there- if there is, well, there shouldn't be."

Cloud nods, and takes the mouse. He exits the room. Out of the corner of his eyes, he catches a glimpse of familliar neon red hair.

_Cloud waited for the Turk to come back to the small, grey room. Cell. Whatever it was. His back was slick with sweat, he was tired, thirsty, and if he moved a little too much to the side, it hurt to breathe. Finally, the Turk came back._

_"Cadet Strife- from now on, you are not allowed to leave headquarters unless authorized by a department head, the General, Lieutenant General, Commander, or President ShinRa. Is that clear?"_

_"Yessir."_

Cloud's breath hitches. He shakes his head.

Nothing of note happens on the trip. Cloud crawls under the desk of station nine to unplug the mouse, plugs back the new one in, making sure the cable is routed the exact same way as before, dusts off and returns to the man.

"Good. Now I want you to take this mouse and replace the one on the fourth station... in room 39BB." Cloud nods, doesn't complain, takes the new mouse and sets off.

...............

Two and a half hours. Two and a half hours of running around headquarters with various kinds of minor equipment and replacing it, with no end in sight. To be fair, the replacements grew in complexity, ranging from a mouse, to a monitor, to, now, as he's slouching under another poorly placed desk, an entire dock, on a desk cluttered with cables and under the watch of a rather sour worker muttering about Cloud's terrible timing, among other less endearing insults. He bites back his responses on the zip ties in his teeth.

It's done, and the office drone working on the machine from hell declares with some surprise and apparent distaste that "it's working again, finally." Cloud trudges back, bracing for whatever Jerry can fling at him next.

"Huh. Well, congratulations, that took care of my entire backlog on that front." Jerry presses a laptop into Cloud's hands. "Now we'll get to the testing part. You ready?"

...…............

In a remote corner of the library, under the shadows of the least visited bookshelf, on a floor covered in several weeks' worth of dust and grime, sits Cloud. He's hunched over a laptop, legs compact, arms folded, body squeezed into a crevice meant only for a smattering of cables. A wire runs from the laptop, past his fidgeting legs, and through to the wall, ending in a bright red socket with bits of electrical tape still glued on.

The screen, even dimmed down, still casts a pale illumination over his face, eyes intent on watching the slow crawl of the progress bar. It appears to barely budge, even as filename after filename whizzes by. Cloud sighs. The laptop is carefully set aside as he maneuvers out, stretching his appendages after the prolonged constraint.

_The enormous, armed man sighed. "You're a kid. That's what ShinRa does. It goes in, ruins a city, and everyone's gotta sign up or they don't got food to eat. Even the kids. I bet you're no older than fourteen, and d'ya lied on the application to get in."_

_"Maybe you've got family back home, maybe you're sending money back, 'cause the local economy's done for- or maybe you just wanted the glory, heh? Well, look around. That's ShinRa glory. And these are the peaceful parts, Wutai ain't pretty."_

As usual, there is scant foot traffic in the area, mostly confined to the odd smattering of test-beleaguered teens. A silence hangs in the air, punctuated by the resonant gum chewing sounds of a not inconsiderable number of the occupants. Someone folds a laptop, another shifts and moves. Cloud's ears seem to latch onto the most minute of expressions, and he can't catalogue them fast enough. He shakes his head.

There's plenty of room to walk around without disruption, something Cloud takes full advantage of before returning to his little corner.

_"But if you're going back- I've got a favor to ask. Can you help me find out what happened to my daughter?"_

It seems like there's been no progress at all, but he opens another program, and continues prowling through records.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone ever had organic chemistry?
> 
> If you haven't, and you feel like sinking endless hours for a barely passing grade, I recommend it.
> 
> Other than that, y'all doing fine?


	40. 15:00, Monday

"Well, it's nice of you to show up today." Nats throws something at Cloud, who scrambles to catch the object- a materia. "I was planning on tormenting you a little more with the barrier, but then decided we should move on."

He shifts the materia in his hand, trying to get a feel for the spell inside. "It's... destruct? Unleveled?"

"Yep. This time _I'll_  be casting the barrier, and you'll have fun with the debarrier. Ready?"

Cloud slots the materia in and nods. Translucent, shimmering flecks appear in front of him, and he focuses on his own spell- in moments, a bright flash erupts from his hand and rushes at the other man, only to dissapate in a few feet. He tries again, unsuccessfully.

Just a few minutes later the doors open, and a head Cloud recognises peeks inside. Then, the entire body of Luxiere steps in along with a wave at Cloud, followed by a few 2nds and 3rds.

Nats drops the barrier. "Yes?"

"Hey, uh, Sarge? We reserved this room."

"I have regularly scheduled classes here."

"Was free on the graph."

Nats frowns, pulls out his PHS, and checks something. His frown deepens. "You're... you're right. But I have a confirmation message."

Luxiere shrugs. "I've got that, too."

"There's no other training room?"

"All of the materia ones are booked or... not in service." Someone from the group snickers at that.

"Ah. I'll report this to technical later. In the meantime- perhaps we could share?"

"Yeah, sure. Guys?" The other SOLDIERs appear to agree. Luxiere turns to Cloud. "So what'chya doing? We're going to get some Firas and Blizzaras, and I've almost got my Fire up to three."

"Wonderful." Nats unequips one of his materia. "That's a great opportunity to practice mbarrier."

"Really? You're going to make him do barriers? Geez, at least let him cast haste so he doesn't fall asleep. Sarge, really." The rest of the SOLDIERs move into positions.

"I have my reasons."

"He can't be Zack level of incompetent."

"He's not."

Cloud watches one of the SOLDIERs breathe out fire, then cough and laugh, while another is busy scuplting something vaguely resembling a snake out of a chunk of ice.

"Come  _on."_

Nats's eyes sweep over the SOLDIERs. He blinks. "Provided the recordings in this room _are_  functioning correctly, do you accept responsibility for any explosions that _will_ occur?"

"Yeah, yeah. Cloud? Cm'here buddy." Cloud tries to speak up, but Luxiere half drags him to an emtpy spot and hands him another materia. "Kay, we figured out this fire breathing thing and it's awesome. Did you see it? Oh, yeah, you're not... anyways." Cloud opens his mouth, but Luxiere keeps right on speaking. "Basically what you do is cast it in front of your face, but directed outwards, so that you don't, well, fry your face."

It's a fire. Or at least that's what the slight heat in his hand tells Cloud. "L- Luxiere. Hey, I-"

"Come on, try. It's actually pretty easy. Just focus it outwards."

Cloud tries to protest weakly again, when a loud *thud* resounds throught the area, followed by several "oomphs," laughter, and Nats' signature deadpan. "No comets in the training rooms. Take that _out_ of Midgar, please." Cloud glances back to see a SOLDIER pinned under a spherical rock, flailing and grinning.

"So?"

Cloud sighs. He equips the fire, shrugs, and faces a nearby wall. He takes a deep breath and slowly, very slowly, trickles in some MP into the materia. It latches on easily, and Cloud can feel the two spells inside. Doing everything he can to choose the _lower_ level one, Cloud begins to cast.

It seems fine, until there's a familiar pressure on his temples, the one he always felt before- _no, no, no, stop, stop!-_  but the energy just keeps flowing in, and Cloud can feel the materia rapidly heat up, and _it's burning,_ and all Cloud can do is try to direct it _outwards-_

There's a boom. A boom and a whoosh, and he's still conscious when everything in front of him turns into a fiery tornado, then less so when he feels hands forcibly pull out the materia from the socket, and then everything goes dark.

...............

"-pose that's another out of service room."

"Heh, no kidding. A word of warning next time, Sarge?"

"I did warn you."

"Yeah, but not about _that."_

Cloud blinks. "What?" He's lying down on something hard and flat, and there are bright lights above him.

"Oh, welcome back, buddy. You ever thought of apprenticing to Genesis?"

"Uh. No?" He gets up. It was the floor. They're still in the training room, and the other side- the other side is a blackened, scortched heap, and- is that a _molten steel beam?_  Cloud watches the few other SOLDIERs poke at the smoldering pile, and one of them throws Cloud a thumbs up when he notices that Cloud is awake.

"Because that looked a lot like a hell firaga, and I swear he'd be impressed. Probably. Maybe."

Cloud blinks blearily. "Uhuh." He notices Nats is smiling a little.

"Oh, SOLDIER Luxiere? I think you're forgetting about something." And that sounded a little _too_  happy.

"Yeah?"

"Someone is going to take a pay cut for this, and it's not me."

"Wha- hey, what!?"

...................

By the time Cloud changes uniforms and reaches the shooting range class is half over, but after one long, hard look at Cloud's dishelved self, the instructor just waves him in. He shuffles into a lane, shifts his earmuffs, and settles into a stance. He mostly misses, but it's still a whole lot easier than his futile attempts at magic.

It's all over soon, and he trudges towards the elevators.

Ping. Ping.

He takes out his PHS and stares at it with weary anticipation. A few swipes later, he opens the first message.

'Cadet Strife,

I have reviewed the case of cadet Pennet Lorimer, and advised the relevant department Heads of your suggestions.

I apologize for the delay in responding, but, as you may have noticed, my department has a considerable number of responsibilities, many of which require my ongoing attention.

If you have any immediate concerns, please relay them to my secretary in person.

Sincerely,  
Reeve Tuesti  
Director of U. Dev. Dep.'

His finger hovers above the 'reply' icon, before drawing back and swiping over to the next message.

'Mr. Strife- there's been a change in your treatment schedule. Please come down to the Science Department at 1:15 PM tomorrow. We apologise for any inconvenience and wish you a pleasant day.'

Cloud sighs and types back a short thanks.


	41. 08:14, Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> March 2019 update: This work is going on hiatus for now. 
> 
> Exams went fine, the new semester started fine, and it was all peachy, but I fell into a depressive episode. There's no telling how long it'll last, so thank you all for enjoying the fic so far. Stay strong.
> 
> Dama out.

"Hello, this is the Shinshin Adoption Center, how may I help you?"

"Um, is there- can I ask if you ever had a particular child in custody?"

"We don't release that information publicly, I'm sorry."

"I'm an employee of the ShinRa Department of Urban Development. Is there any procedure by which I could apply for that information?"

"Oh, you should have said so! Of course, if your department allows it, please file form CPS-19. Is there anything else I can help you with, sir?"

"How long will it take for your response?"

"We'll have any necessary information within two weeks."

"Oh, ok. Thanks. That's all, thank you. Have a great day."

"Have a great day, sir." _Click._

_There were pictures of her everywhere; in the kitchen, above the stairs, next to the maps of Midgar with plans of attacks scrawled all over- a short, sweet little girl, smiling on all of them, either waving to the camera or in some other exited motion. He talked about her sometimes, and Cloud could see the faint dampness in his eyes, and the slight slouch of his shoulders._

Cloud sets aside the PHS and scrawls something on a notepad. He used to have notes on his PHS, but due to constant unfortunate circumstances that method is likely to be unreliable- unless Cloud decides to try Fire again, in which case any method of noting things down at all will be unreliable. He crosses off another number, holds the pen in his teeth and gathers up the various implements scattered around him.

_"Have they mentioned any of their plans?"_

_Cloud focused on a tiny, off tint grey patch behind the Turk. "No."_

_"Why did they take you alive?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"One of the terrorists- Barret Wallace- had a daughter. Did he mention her at all?"_

_The wall. Focus on the wall. "I... I think? They talked about how bad ShinRa is. I think he- the, the armed guy, said something about a daughter. I don't know." Look down briefly. Wince. Shift._

_"What exactly did they say?"_

Cloud shakes his head.

Breakfast is a quick affair- he's technically late, even if Jerry did say there'd be nothing for him to do before nine. Cloud seems quite the hard worker, having finished a week's worth of tasks in just two days. He enters the office, smiles at Jessica's cheerful waving, and prepares himself for another day of running errands and crawling in places not meant for man to crawl in.

He sets off to his next errand, ready to face the day. Of course, things never go according to plan in Cloud's world.

The lights go out.

The whirring sound, which should never _ever_  stop, peters out- within moments Cloud is left alone in the cold silence.

He tries to back out of the tight spot he's wedged in, promptly slamming his head against the corner of a shelf, dropping the delicate storage device and producing a nice, clanky thud right after his own blunder. He curses under his breath and blinks the tears out of his eyes. He carefully maneuvers out, mindful of all the pointless sharp corners around.

He backtracks to the exit by feel, only to discover the electronic lock is shut tight. He slumps. His fingers thumb over the place he's hit himself. It's slick. He pulls back, tries to look at his hand before realising there's absolutely no light, and gingerly licks it. It's blood. Not much, thankfully.

On the other side of the door, his PHS is ringing. "At least networking is up." He mumbles. He taps on the door a few times, hoping that maybe, just maybe, there's someone close by. He dimly recalls there's a way to open the door manually, but it's some multi-step procedure. No one comes. Cloud sits down.

He waits. And waits. A fair bit of boredom and impatient tapping later a light flickers back on. And another. The doors beep, and Cloud almost jumps up in joy- and the doors hit him like a sack of potatoes.

"Cloud!? Cloud, you ok?"

Cloud is going to requisition a large hi-potion supply at this rate. His head still ringing, he stumbles out from behind the door and nods dumbly.

"Oh, _Shiva's tits,_ I'm sorry!"

"S'okay. I'll be ok."

Jerry doesn't buy it, but doesn't comment further. "Alright. You go take a break, I need to deal with _this._  There were supposed to be _backup generators,_  which I _tested_  but apparently that bit- I mean _director_  Scarlet just took them without mentioning."

"Oh. Wha- whahappened?"

"Scheduled load shedding, some dumb _son of a Tonberry_  also decided to cut HQ off. Dear _lord Bahamut,_  I have no idea how this company manages to function at all-" Jerry's gestures are getting rather passionate. "-And fuck those terrorists. Fuck them and their goddamn eco-zolomshit." He stops and sighs. "Sorry. I shouldn't- I shouldn't be taking this out on you. Go. Out. Don't come back for at least-" he glances at the room. "-actually, don't come back at all. You have that thing in the afternoon, right?"

"Uh, yeah... oh, I dropped the-"

"I'll deal with it. Shoo."

Cloud nods and scrambles out, takes his PHS, and, as he's leaving, Jerry is still stringing together a slew of curse words.

11:34

'Reasons for request: Frequent, recurring, highly improbable and possibly fatal injuries that cannot be prepared for.'

Send. The icon for loading appears, swirls, and stops, throwing out an error and a curt explanation that services are down.

_"Why did they let you go?"_

_"I don't know."_

_"Did they ask you to do anything?"_

_"I don't understand the question."_

_"Did they ask you to do any favors? Recruit people?"_

_Focus. On. The. Wall. "Uh... I mean, they- they asked me to read about ShinRa and try to convince others- so I guess that counts as recruiting?"_

The library is more busy than usual on account of the upcoming exams, but the lumpy couch was free for the taking. He slumps. The nurses wanted him to stay for observation, but the cloying disinfectant smell of the infirmary drove Cloud to leave the second he was cleared- even before they gave him the painkillers.

Which is why he has a headache again. But that's ok, he's used to this- he can even read and write coherent sentences, which is a definite step up.

So back to searching.

13:02

Cloud settles into a chair in the waiting room. It's just him and the receptionist, but he keeps glancing at the doors, half expecting the General to show up at any moment. After a good ten minutes of tense fidgeting, someone calls him up. They walk through a familliar and dizzying array of corridors filled with things Cloud refuses to think about, arrive at a place Cloud will definitely develop nightmares about, and go through the same motions as a week and a half ago that Cloud already has nightmares about.

As he's falling asleep, Cloud wonders if he should drink beforehand, just to see how it would mess their routine, while another part of him wonders if that's just Reno's influence...

.................

The hazy sea of green is almost reassuring at this point. He's gently floating, not fully there, but not entirely absent, either. He can be like this- this is fine. Everything is fine, everything is safe, and warm, and cozy... and suddenly, he's back in his room in Nibelheim. It's his bed, if somewhat too small for him- and wouldn't ma be proud that he'd grown?

"Cloud!" It's her! "Cloud, come down, dinner's ready!"

"I'm coming, ma!" He bolts off the bed and rushes down, the wonderful smells wafting all around the house. She's there, in her apron, busily setting the table and smiling at him. Cloud rushes to help her, and soon they're both sitting in front of full plates, ready to dig in. Everything is, as always, delicious.

"How's school?"

Cloud pauses mid bite. "School?" He's not... unless she means classes.

"I've heard you had some trouble with the other boys."

Cloud winces. Keryl... he looks away. "It's fine, ma, we get along now."

"That's good, honey." Her smile is brilliant, as ever, but when he looks back, Cloud feels something is... off. "How about we go sledding today? It's perfect outside."

"But I- I need to-" What... what does he need to do?

"Dear? Is something wrong?"

Cloud needs to- he needs to run. He needs to run, now, because otherwise the bomb will explode behind him- but there's no bomb. It's his house- the door- but where are the ladders? He needs to go, _now._

"Cloud! Cloud!" His mother's hand is outstreched towards him, her eyes pleading, and he almost grasps it to help her up- his alter is standing behind her. He freezes. His mother is crying, begging now, but all he can do is stare at his counterpart slowly moving forward, grabbing her throat and cutting the cries short. His alter tosses the limp body aside with that blank, faceless expression.

 **"Reunion."**  It's like his voice, but not, and there's something harsh and guttural to it.

He turns and runs. He just runs, out of the house, away, as far and as fast as he can. The landscape changes, twists, and the snow and hills wither away to nothing, and in moments he's swallowed by darkness.

**"You can't run from me."**

Twisting, oily, pulsating blackness that starts wrapping itself around Cloud-

**"Let us set the world to rights, together. Help me, and all will be well."**

-and he's choking, struggling, fighting the miasma around him-

**"Shush, child. Let me help you. Let me be there for you."**

-he's swallowed whole, nearly immobile, about to just give up. At last he slumps, with shallow breaths and aching muscles. He just stays there for a while, shuddering at the slick touch of things he can't see coiling themselves ever tighter.

There are voices around him, someone screaming, shouting, _hold him!_

The darkness recoils. Cloud is blinded by a light, and he can move again- his eyes adjust, and he's- he's in the church. He's lying down on the flower bed, looking at a bright sky. He sits up. On the side is a girl. A girl with beautiful, braided brown hair, and she's smiling at him and extending a hand.

"Hello there, mister."

He takes it. She's surprisingly strong. "Who- where-"

"I'm Aerith." She proudly proclaims. "You're mister Cloud!" She frowns. "You're not a Cetra, right?"

"Wha- Cetra?"

"Aw."

Cloud wipes his eyes. "I'm hallucinating, yes? This is just a hallucination?"

Aerith is watering the flowers with a can she just materialised out of nowhere. "Nuhuh. This is real, mister."

"So..." He just stares. "...where are we?"

"The lifestream!"

"The- right." Cloud decides this is some sort of crazy mako induced nightmare and that of course nothing makes the slightest bit of sense. "The lifestream."

"Yep."

"Ah."

She's humming some melody and watering on.

Cloud resists banging his head on the nearest hard surface. "So how do I... leave?"

She looks at him like he just asked what two plus two is. "You just leave."

"Okay. Okay then. I'll just- leave." He moves towards what is presumably the exit.

"Have a great day, mister Cloud!" She waves at him, and Cloud feels obliged to wave back, even if this is all in his imagination.

"Uh, yeah. You too." He takes a step outside, and the church vanishes, and he's back in the floaty green.

The green is tainted black, and Cloud can hear whispers at the edge of his hearing. He ignores it, ignores the voice telling him about his mother, as all of this is obviously just nonsense his head spewed out and if he just waits long enough he'll wake up and go on with his life.

"-stopped struggling."

"Don't let go!"

"I think he's-"

Cloud wakes up. He's lying on his stomach on a cold, hard floor, and his hands are twisted painfully, there's a large pressure on his back. He groans. The pressure receeds, slightly.

"Cloud?"

"Mmph?"

"You there?"

He grits out a yes. The weight shifts off entirely.

"No, don't let go-"

"With all due respect, doctor, he's awake."

He rolls on his back and stretches his sore arms. Harsh, brutal lights stare back at him. He shields his eyes.

"Cloud, you recognise me?"

Everything hurts. "Uh. Yeh. Lux. Luxiere."

"Awesome."

"Nngh."

"Right. Sorry for the arms. Let's get you up, ok? Easy goes."

He's up, leaning quite heavilly on another body, and he can't even see where they're staggering to, because everything is white and grey and very blurry, but soon enough Cloud is let go on something rather soft and nice, and this time, he can't wait to fall back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay. Midterms coming up. I swear, my life is over.


End file.
